


Night Blossoms

by chellerrific



Category: Tales of Graces, Tales of Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Haunted Houses, M/M, Multi, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2954129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellerrific/pseuds/chellerrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asbel Lhant is returning home for the first time in ten years, looking to start a new life with his foster daughter in the wake of his father’s passing. It won’t be that simple, however, as Asbel finds he has some unfinished business waiting for him in Lhant—and judging by the fact that his new house seems to be haunted, he may not be the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Mostly) written as part of NaNo 2014. This is largely a meandering oversized fluff piece with a bit of plot to tie it all together. That said, there is discussion, obviously, of the loss of a parent as well as of someone (else) who perished in a fire. Please avoid if that may bother you.
> 
> Everyone is about ten years older than their canon age here, except Sophie, who is just fourteen.
> 
> As is often the case for me, this is more gen than anything, and the pairings aren’t terribly explicit if you wish to read one or more of them as platonic rather than romantic/sexual. I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to pander to my OT3, since I am the only one who will.
> 
> Uh, I think I stole Raph from [Vyc](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vyc) rather than canon. Hope you don’t mind, friend.
> 
> Thanks again to my beta Phil, who is now an accidental Richard fangirl despite having never played the game.

The sign whipped past at over sixty miles an hour, fast but not too fast to read the words carved and painted on its wooden surface: _Welcome to Lhant_. Underneath, slightly smaller but no less legible: _Town of Flowers_.

Sophie Lhant had her face pressed against the glass of the passenger side window, her eyes wide and unblinking. “It’s real!”

From the driver’s seat, Asbel Lhant grinned. Almost anybody would mistake him for an older brother, but in reality he was Sophie’s legal guardian, her foster father. “Did you think I was making it up?”

Sophie shrugged. “Maybe.” 

He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. “You nervous?”

She didn’t answer right away, which was typical for her. Asbel could tell she was mulling the question over. “A little bit.”

“Don’t be. She’s going to love you. Especially when we bring her cake.”

The town had one little bakery, where Asbel had called ahead so the cake would be ready when they got in. It had been ten years since he’d seen his mother. He didn’t think store bought sheet cake would cut it.

The elderly man behind the counter lit up when Asbel gave him his name. “Master Asbel!”

Asbel did a double take. There was only one person who had ever called him that. “Mr. Barnes?”

“Call me Frederic, please!” the man said. “I could hardly believe it when I saw the order and now I’m still not sure I believe it. After all these years, Asbel Lhant! I am so sorry about your father.”

Asbel nodded, unsure what to say. Before he could dwell on it much, however, he felt a little tug on his sleeve. He turned to find Sophie looking up at him curiously. “Oh! Right. Sophie, this is Frederic Barnes. He used to oversee the care of the estate before he retired. Mr.—er, Frederic, this is Sophie, my daughter.”

Frederic looked like those words had knocked the wind out of him. “Your—I had no idea Master Asbel had been married!”

“Please, no need for the ‘master’ stuff. And I’m not. Sophie is my foster daughter. It’s a long story.”

“Oh—of course.” Frederic smiled politely. “Let me get your cake.”

He disappeared into the back, returning a minute later with a pink box. “How long are you in town for, if I may ask?”

Asbel glanced at Sophie. “Well, we kind of intended to move back here.”

“How delightful!” Frederic said, beaming. “Cheria will be thrilled to hear it.”

Asbel’s stomach did something strange. “Cheria? Cheria still lives here?”

“Yes, she teaches at the school,” Frederic said.

 _Tug, tug_.

“Cheria is Mr.—Frederic’s granddaughter,” Asbel explained to Sophie. “We went to school together. Grew up together, really.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow, but Asbel shrugged her off. “Thanks for the cake, Frederic. How much do I owe you?”

“Please, consider it a welcome home gift, as one friend to another. I insist.”

Asbel remembered quite well the iron will Frederic could display when he so chose and decided to accept the gift in the spirit in which it was given. “Thank you, Frederic. That’s very generous of you.”

“In exchange,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, “you must come over for dinner sometime soon.”

Asbel frowned. “That’s not how gifts work. But all right, since you’re blackmailing me with cake.”

Frederic continued to smile. “Blackmail? I would never dream of such a thing.”

“You have a lot of friends here, don’t you?” Sophie said as she and Asbel got back into the car.

Asbel shrugged. “I grew up here. It’s a small town. I haven’t seen anyone in years, though, so how well they remember me or would want to see me, I couldn’t say.”

They headed back out of town towards the outskirts, where the Lhant estate sat. Asbel’s family had founded the town generations ago and had managed to maintain a level of prestige in it ever since; it was impossible to have any level of familiarity with the area and not know of the Lhants of Lhant. All the same, Asbel had never thought of himself as precisely “rich” until he decided to live without his family’s money.

The manor gates were already open, and he followed the drive up to the house. Ever since they’d reached Lhant there’d been a tightening sensation in his chest. It had been so long since he’d been here. It was his childhood home, but he wasn’t convinced he was not now an interloper.

“Whoa,” said Sophie, rolling down her window to lean out of it. “This place makes our apartment look like a dump.”

“Ouch,” said Asbel, pulling to a stop. He turned off the engine but didn’t budge for a long moment.

“Don’t be nervous,” Sophie said. “She’s going to love you. Especially when we bring her cake.”

Asbel laughed. “Well, I can’t exactly argue with that. Come on. Let’s go meet your grandmother.”

A maid Asbel didn’t recognize opened the door. She let him in without a fuss, wordlessly taking the cake to send to the kitchen. The staff knew he was coming, but Asbel suspected a certain baker might have phoned in a tip about his arrival within the last few minutes as well.

Asbel and Sophie were barely past the threshold when a solid mass collided with Asbel in a tearful hug. He didn’t even have to see or hear her to know who it was. This feeling, this scent, they were all too familiar. He hugged his mother back and let her weep.

“Asbel,” she gasped. “Is it really you?”

“It’s really me,” Asbel whispered. “Hi, Mom. I’m home.”

Finally Kerri Lhant pulled back slightly, holding her son at arm’s length to get a look at him. “You’re so grown-up.”

Asbel scratched his head. “Well, it had to happen eventually. Oh, Mom. There’s someone you need to meet. This is Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Kerri repeated quietly.

Asbel stepped aside so that Sophie couldn’t hide behind him. He nudged her forward a little bit, trying to close the gap between her and Kerri.

Kerri helped by stepping forward herself. “Sophie,” she said again. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you.”

“Can I call you Grandma?” Sophie asked.

Kerri glanced at Asbel, who shrugged. “Ah, well… of course you can. Can I hug you?”

Sophie considered this briefly, then nodded. When they embraced, Asbel let out a tiny sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, exactly, but this was good.

Kerri led the two of them to the living room, where tea and coffee were set out. “Dinner will be ready soon. I’ll have them take your things upstairs. Your room is just as you left it, except cleaner, if you want to stay there.”

“Thanks, Mom. That’ll be fine. Listen, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Sophie and I talked this over and we think we want to move to Lhant. You know, for good.”

Kerri’s face was even more of a study than Frederic’s had been. “Truly?”

Asbel nodded.

“Oh, it’s—that’s wonderful! This house is too big for just me after all, and—”

“Mom,” Asbel cut in gently. “We wouldn’t be living here. I’m closing the deal on a cottage outside of town.”

Kerri blinked, processing this information. “Oh. That’s… are you sure?”

Asbel nodded. He didn’t want to tell her that he wasn’t entirely sure he belonged here anymore. She would have felt responsible, even though she wasn’t, and try to convince him otherwise, even though she couldn’t. His father cast a long shadow over Lhant. Asbel was already afraid just moving back meant he was willingly stepping back into it.

“Well,” Kerri said, giving a smile that was only a tiny bit forced. “Having you back here at all is already more than I could have hoped for.”

She hadn’t meant for them to but her words stung a little. Asbel shook it off. “I’m really happy to see you again, Mom.”

This time Kerri’s smile was more genuine. “So. Tell me everything about your life.”

* * *

Kerri fed them more than any one person could reasonably be expected to eat. Asbel knew there was a time when he would have packed it all away easily, but no longer. He was a little afraid how Sophie would react to it all, given what a picky eater she normally was, but to his relief she deemed enough of Kerri’s offerings to be worthy, and Kerri seemed to think she was just trying to save room for cake.

Asbel was relieved when dinner was over and it was time to go to bed. He was glad to see his mother again, really, but it was hard to know what to say, especially since the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about was his dead father.

Asbel had left home right after high school to get away from his father. He had deliberately not looked back. He had never intended for his father to die before they saw each other again, though. The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“This is your old room?” Sophie asked, looking around. The walls were a shade of blue he had picked out himself and still covered in the posters of his favorite bands.

“That’s right. I grew up in here.”

“It smells better than I thought it would,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, it’s—hey!”

She opened the side door and peered inside. “It’s a bathroom.” She walked through the bathroom to the door on the other side. “What’s through here?”

This door opened up onto a room that looked like no one had ever lived in it, but Asbel knew better. “Ahh, this is Hubert’s room.”

Sophie tilted her head slightly. “Hubert?”

“My, ah. Brother.”

Her eyes widened, something Asbel had learned was the Sophie equivalent of complete shock. “Brother? I have an uncle?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Asbel admitted, trying to hide how chagrined he was.

“Is he coming too?”

“I haven’t heard from him,” Kerri said from the hall door behind them.

“Mom,” said Asbel.

“It’s all right. He’s very busy. It’s hard to get a hold of him. Sophie, your room is just down the hall, dear.”

“Can I stay in here?” Sophie asked, indicating Hubert’s room.

Kerri and Asbel exchanged glances. “Well… if that’s what you’d like.”

“This way we can share a bathroom,” she told Asbel. “And I can feel closer to Uncle Hubert.”

“Is that all right, Mom?” Asbel asked.

“Of course. I’ll just have the maid bring her things in here instead.”

“I can help,” Sophie said, following Kerri down the hall.

Asbel looked around Hubert’s room. His little brother had been gone even longer than he had, since Hubert had gone to boarding school. The two of them had been somewhat close as children, but they’d started growing apart as they got older. Their personalities were too different.

There were no posters on the walls of Hubert’s room. There were no childhood toy remnants anywhere. The drawers were all empty. It was almost hard to believe Asbel even had a brother. Reluctantly, Asbel made up his mind and headed downstairs to his father’s office.

The room looked untouched. The papers were all still on the desk. The shelves were all still full of books. Going in there, Asbel felt like a small boy called in to be yelled at, but his father was not sitting behind the desk, ready to deliver a stern rebuke. Asbel had to remind himself that that would never happen again. This was, without a doubt, the weirdest part of a very weird day. He understood better what things must have been like for his mother. Even with the staff, the house was so empty.

He went to the desk and found his father’s address book. There was a cell phone number for Hubert in it, but Asbel wouldn’t know if it was up-to-date until he dialed it.

“You’ve reached Hubert Lhant’s voicemail. Please state your name, number, and reason for calling after the tone.”

The voice sounded robotic, but it was definitely Hubert’s. Before he could change his mind, Asbel took a deep breath and started talking. “Hubert. It’s Asbel. I’m sure you’ve heard the news about Dad. Listen, you need to come home. Don’t do it for me or for Dad. Come home for Mom. She needs you.” He hesitated briefly but couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he hung up.

He went back upstairs and found Sophie coming out of the joint bathroom in her pajamas. “There you are,” she said, taking her long hair out of its ponytails. “I was afraid you’d gotten lost.”

“I wouldn’t get lost in this house.”

“It’s a big house.”

“Your concern is touching.” He pulled the covers down on Hubert’s bed. “Now come on. Tomorrow we’re gonna go see the new place.”

“I’m excited,” she said, climbing into bed. She sounded as impassive as ever, but Asbel knew she meant it.

“Me too. I hope you like it as much as I do.” He tucked the covers around her and kissed her on the forehead. “Good night.”

“Good night.”


	2. Chapter 2

When Asbel got up the next morning, he found Sophie already awake in her/Hubert’s room, examining a model ship.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked.

“Over there.” She pointed vaguely towards what he’d thought was an empty desk.

“Oh. It must have belonged to Hubert. He loved boats,” Asbel explained.

“It’s cute,” Sophie said, which was not the word he would have chosen. “Can I hold onto it until Uncle Hubert gets back?”

Inwardly, Asbel cringed a bit. If _“Uncle Hubert” gets back_ , he opted not to say. “Yeah, sure. Just be careful with it.”

She nodded, her face set in a grim expression that made it clear she intended to guard the safety of that toy boat with her life.

They tried to slip out quietly, but Kerri was already up. Asbel guessed by the dark circles under her eyes that she was not sleeping much at all lately and he felt another thrum of guilt reverberate through his chest. When she asked them if they wanted breakfast, he accepted without hesitation.

“Can we have omelettes?” Sophie asked.

“Of course,” Kerri said.

“Can they be crab omelettes?” Sophie asked.

“I… don’t see why not,” Kerri said.

Asbel sighed inwardly, hoping nobody was going to have to rush out to get crabmeat. Sophie would eat crablettes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if she could.

He wanted to ask his mother if she’d heard from Hubert since yesterday, but it seemed unlikely for a few reasons, and he didn’t want to force her to think of something so unpleasant if it wasn’t already on her mind. He was so mad at Hubert he could have popped him one if physical proximity permitted. It may have been somewhat hypocritical, but at least Asbel had come home right away upon hearing the news.

It was still hard to believe his father was dead. In truth, he hadn’t really processed or accepted it yet. The two of them were never close. His father was a cold, seemingly unfeeling man with no concept of flexibility or free will. Asbel was not exactly wild but he could not live his life the way his father demanded. There was a time when he would have blamed his father exclusively for their problems, but nowadays he realized he hadn’t exactly given as much as he could have either.

He was feeling thoroughly dejected by the time the crab omelettes were finished. He didn’t want his mother to see it on his face, so he forced a bright smile and told her they were going to check out the new house. To his surprise she wanted to come too. He couldn’t think of a reason why she shouldn’t, and it would give her a chance to get out of the house and bond with Sophie some more, so the three of them—Asbel, Kerri, Sophie—piled into Asbel’s SUV and headed out to the property.

It was a Friday morning and a bit overcast. The town was already awake, most people headed to work, others on days off, working later shifts, or tourists, instead taking lazy strolls through the square and along past the shops.

“I like it here,” Sophie said. “It feels like home.”

Asbel felt a little warm inside. Sophie hadn’t had much she could call a home before he’d met her. This was not a declaration he took lightly. “It’s not boring compared to the city?”

She thought about this for a moment. “Maybe a little. But it’s a good kind of boring. A pretty kind of boring.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant but decided to go with it being a positive thing.

Asbel drove through town and out the other side. The realtor was supposed to meet them at the house to hand over the keys. He was another person Asbel knew from his former life, a boy named Raph he’d gone to school with. They’d only been conversing by phone so far but they both recognized one another immediately when Asbel pulled up.

“There was a lot of interest in this particular property,” Raph said, “but I really fought for you on it.”

Kerri looked incredulous. She’d been mildly shocked to hear on the ride over that Asbel bought the property without visiting it in person first, but then she admitted it was “just the sort of thing he would do.”

Asbel wasn’t certain but he thought that may have been an insult. He argued that he _had_ been there in person before—just not in over a decade. It was the old property that had gone uninhabited for years because it was supposedly haunted. That was part of why Asbel got a good deal on it.

For some reason, this didn’t seem to make Kerri feel better. “If nobody’s lived here for years, what’s all this about ‘a lot of interest’ in it?”

“That’s…” Asbel trailed off. He didn’t know how to answer that.

Raph looked mildly put-out by Kerri’s reaction as he unlocked the front door, but of course he’d already made the sale. It was a medium-sized four-bedroom cottage sitting on about one acre of land on the outskirts of town. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, the yard overgrown with weeds, but not only did that keep the price lower, Asbel liked the idea of doing some home repairs. He thought Sophie would like it too, and he especially thought she’d like how much room for a garden there was.

He looked over at her. As usual she was somewhat hard to read from expression alone, but her eyes were wide.

For his part, Asbel loved it. It was such a change from the tiny two-bedroom apartment in the city they’d been squeezed into since Sophie had come to live with him. Any doubts he’d had about moving back to Lhant disappeared.

“I have some questions for you,” Kerri said to Raph, her tone of voice implicitly adding his full name to the end of the sentence. “About this roof…”

That was when Asbel noticed. “Sophie?”

She was gone. She was so quiet normally that he hadn’t immediately realized he’d lost her. He ducked back through the house, finally finding her in one of the bedrooms. “Sophie, is something wrong?”

“There’s something strange here,” she said.

“Something… strange?”

She nodded. Apparently, that was all he was going to get, at least for now.

Asbel’s stomach dropped. She’d liked the pictures that he’d shown her. He was so sure she’d like it even more in person. What was he going to do if she ended up hating it? The last thing in the world he wanted was for her to end up unhappy.

His mind started to go into panic mode. He’d failed her. He was the worst father ever.

“I won’t need a window box here,” Sophie said, cutting into his thoughts.

“What?”

“I could have a real garden. Right?”

“So… you… like it?”

Sophie hesitated, then nodded. “I don’t want this room though.”

Was that really all it took? “That’s fine. We’ll make this the guest bedroom. You’ve still got more rooms to choose from. Come on, let’s go check them out.”

They found Kerri asking Raph shrewd questions about the foundation. Still, she didn’t seem entirely displeased with what she was hearing; as far as Asbel could tell, there was perhaps more work to be done than he’d anticipated, but nothing life- or bank account-ruining.

It was afternoon by then, but instead of heading back to the manor, they decided to stop in town and get some ice cream, then sit in the park and eat it.

“What did you think of the house, Sophie?” Kerri asked.

As usual, Sophie took a moment to consider her response. “It’s pretty. There’s a lot of room. I think there’s a ghost in it.”

Asbel nearly choked on his pistachio cone. “What?”

“Asbel, were you telling her those old stories?” Kerri asked, looking ready to deliver a lecture.

“No! I don’t think I ever even mentioned it to her.” Asbel ran through it in his mind. He had talked about it with his mom just that day, but he didn’t think Sophie was paying attention. Then again, sometimes she seemed to hear things he didn’t think she did.

“It wasn’t anything you said,” Sophie insisted. “I felt something there.”

Asbel didn’t know what to say.

“But it’s okay,” Sophie went on, “because if anything happened, I’d protect you and you’d protect me.”

“Just like we always do.”

Sophie nodded. “And you like the house. It makes you happy.”

“I want you to be happy too,” Asbel said.

“I am, whenever I’m with you.”

Kerri took a lacy handkerchief out of her clutch and dabbed at her eyes with it.

He and Sophie finished their cones, and he offered to make the short walk to the nearest trash can to throw his mother’s paper cup away. As he walked, he passed the playground belonging to the adjoining school. A small gaggle of children was out playing, probably waiting for busy parents to come pick them up. Standing in the middle of them trying to maintain a little bit of order was—

“Cheria,” Asbel gasped. She was older, no longer wearing ribbons in her hair, but he would have recognized her anywhere.

He doubted she’d heard him, but she looked up just then and he was sure they made eye contact. He started to lift his hand in a wave, but just as quickly, she turned away.

Maybe she didn’t recognize him. It had been a long time, after all. Not sure what to make of it, he shuffled back to his mother and Sophie.

“Asbel, guess what? I just got a call from Frederic and he wants us to have dinner with him and Cheria tomorrow,” Kerri said. “I already told him yes. I knew you would want to see Cheria again.”

Asbel almost laughed at the joke, glancing over his shoulder as if Cheria would suddenly be standing there. She wasn’t, of course. “Yeah, totally. Hey, Mom, is there anything in particular you’d like for dinner _tonight_?”

“Hm, I’d need a minute to think about it. Why?”

“Because I’m going to make you dinner, if that’s all right.”

Just as Asbel had anticipated, Kerri was thrilled and touched by the news and hurried them back to the car so they could do some grocery shopping and then go home to get started.

In ten years of living on his own, Asbel had gotten to be a pretty decent cook. It was a change from those first few years, when he nearly starved living on undercooked ramen. Nowadays he was more than confident that he could make his family a meal that would not only not give them food poisoning but that they would actually enjoy.

“No crablettes?” Sophie asked back at the manor, going through the groceries they’d picked up.

“Not tonight,” Asbel said, tying on an apron.

Sophie stared wistfully at the ingredients in front of her, accepting that none were crabmeat. “If it’s for Grandma, that’s okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

Asbel felt a creeping anxiousness all through the next morning. He and Sophie decided to head out to the property and get started on figuring out what they needed most before they could officially move in. They had sold the small amount of furniture in their apartment in the city, since it would likely have been more trouble than it was worth to get it moved. They definitely needed beds and some kitchen appliances first. Raph had made sure the electricity and water were turned on, so all they needed to do was get to work.

When he explained to Kerri, she got excited and insisted she come along again, and again he couldn’t see why not, since she was asking. Really he was glad that he could give her something to do that she obviously enjoyed. He felt a pang of guilt for what she must have been going through. It wasn’t his fault his father had died, but the fact that his mother had to face it alone was.

As it turned out, Kerri had lots of ideas. Asbel couldn’t tell if she’d been thinking about it since the day before or if they were just coming to her in the moment. They were good, though, and Asbel and Sophie both found themselves nodding along enthusiastically. The way she described things made it easy to see her vision as clearly as she did.

Three of the bedrooms were accounted for—one for Asbel, one for Sophie, and one for guests. They decided they would make the fourth bedroom an office. No one was really sure exactly what Asbel would need an office for, since he hadn’t yet decided what he would do for a living in Lhant, but he would have to decide eventually. His savings from his job as an insurance claims supervisor were not insubstantial, but they wouldn’t last forever. In the meantime, putting in an office seemed like a good idea. If nothing else, Sophie could use it to do homework when she went back to school. Of course, she took that to mean she had a say in decoration, which meant she wanted purple and flowers just like her own bedroom. Kerri somehow managed to talk her into something more neutral, though, a pale nautical theme. Sophie agreed, deciding Hubert’s boat would feel at home there until he came to collect it.

Then Kerri set them to work cleaning. The house needed a lot of it. Asbel didn’t even mind her taking charge. Cleaning had always seemed like such a pain when he was a kid, but that was a long time ago. In his years alone, he’d developed an appreciation for what a little bit of elbow grease could do. He always had the cleanest apartment of anyone he knew, which people seemed to think was unusual for a young bachelor, but he wasn’t sure why. It was satisfying work, and certainly nobody else was going to do it.

He and Sophie were put on sweeping and mopping duty and slowly began to make their way through the house while Kerri started measuring things. Most of the windows were broken and all, she insisted, needed to be replaced. They were all making good progress until they reached the designated guest bedroom, when suddenly Sophie balked.

“I’m being silly, aren’t I,” she said, hesitating at the threshold. “It was probably just my imagination.”

“It’ll be all right. Remember? I’ll protect you.”

“Not if I protect you first,” she said, and defiantly took a step into the room. “Phew. I didn’t explode.”

“Nope,” Asbel said, not sure how real of a possibility she thought that was. He leaned his mop against the wall and pushed the window open as much as it would go. The weather was getting warmer and they had both already worked up a good sweat, the sweat of hard work.

“We’ll have pick up some fans when we stop at the hardware store,” he went on, running his arm across his brow. “Okay, broom girl—”

Behind him, there was a clatter as his mop slid to the floor. He jumped far more than Sophie did.

He picked the mop back up and looked at Sophie, who was watching him with that same opaquely pensive expression as usual. “Well, gravity’s still working,” he said jauntily.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He coughed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Say, what color do you think we should do in here?”

She started sweeping. “What’s Cheria’s favorite color?”

“Uh… I don’t know. Pink, maybe? What’s Cheria got to do with anything?”

Sophie shrugged. “Just getting ideas. I like pink. Pale, or maybe dusty rose. That’s a nice color.”

A pink guest bedroom? Asbel wasn’t sure, but he’d bounce it off his mom and see what ideas she came up with. So far she hadn’t tossed out any clunkers.

“Asbel?” Kerri called.

“I’ll be right back,” Asbel told Sophie, who nodded and kept sweeping.

He found his mother and her tape measure by the back door. “I was just thinking,” she said, without looking up at him, “how about French doors here? You’ll have to take this out anyway.”

“French doors?”

She gave him that incredulous look he was used to receiving from people. “I’ll show you when we go to the hardware store. You’ll like them.”

Suddenly there were pounding footsteps down the hall, the sound of someone running by in a great hurry. Asbel and Kerri exchanged alarmed glances, then hurried to see.

Sophie wasn’t in the hall. “Sophie?” Asbel called, peering into the bathroom and her room, which were empty.

“Yes?” she called from the guest bedroom.

Asbel and Kerri went to check on her. She was right where Asbel left her, sweeping away.

“Sophie, why were you running through the hall?” Kerri asked.

Sophie looked up but kept sweeping. “I wasn’t.” A pause. “Should I?”

“No, that’s all right,” Asbel said, pulling Kerri back into the hall.

The two of them did a quick look around the house, but they and Sophie were, of course, the only ones there.

“That was weird,” said Asbel. “Maybe it was just… the house settling?”

Kerri nodded absently, clearly as unconvinced as Asbel felt.

Asbel stuck by Sophie for the rest of the afternoon while they worked, but it ended up being largely uneventful. The late spring sun was still bright when they decided to call it quits, opting to return to the manor to get cleaned up before dinner with Frederic and Cheria.

And there was the creeping nervousness again, the knotty feeling in Asbel’s stomach that had mostly let up while they worked. Before he thought it was because he was worried about his choice to buy the cottage, but now that it was back and stronger than ever, he realized it was really because of Cheria.

Why was he so worried about seeing her? Too many reasons, really, most of which he wasn’t ready to confront, but the one he kept coming back to was the expression on her face when they made eye contact the day before. He could only describe it as stone cold.

A part of him wanted to try to talk his way out of this whole ordeal, but he knew that was cowardly, not to mention pretty pointless. If he was going to live in Lhant, he’d run into Cheria sooner or later—technically he already had, in fact, and the next time a genuine confrontation might be unavoidable. Better rip off that Band-Aid of awkwardness now, he supposed.

They arrived at the Barnes house right on time with a dessert Asbel had made and set aside while in the kitchen the night before. He doubted it would be as good as anything Frederic might make himself, but he thought it was still pretty good.

Frederic answered the door. It was just him and Cheria in the little house in town, and it had been for awhile now. At first Asbel was surprised that Cheria hadn’t gotten her own place, but on second thought, it made more sense to him than it didn’t. Cheria would probably wilt without someone to fuss over, and even though Frederic was still in good health, she would worry about him constantly if he were on his own. Asbel supposed what really surprised him was that Cheria hadn’t gotten married yet. She was the type who wanted that life.

Sophie slipped her hand into his. He wasn’t sure if she had somehow sensed his unease or if she wanted the reassurance herself. Either way, he was grateful for it and gave it a small squeeze.

And there in the living room, getting to her feet as they came in, was Cheria. Her hair was loose around her shoulders—a little shorter than he remembered it but just as wavy and dark red. Her expression was open and warm, but then, she wasn’t looking at him.

“So this is Sophie,” Cheria said. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Cheria was even more surprised than I was when I told her,” Frederic said. “She broke a plate.”

“Grandfather!” Cheria said, turning tomato red. “I was washing dishes and the soap was slippery! It was totally unrelated!”

Sophie titled her head to one side. “Am I really that surprising?”

“We didn’t know Asbel had any children, that’s all,” Frederic explained. “After all, Ms. Lhant is awfully young to be a grandmother.”

“True,” Kerri said without hesitation.

“So, Sophie,” said Cheria. “What do you like to do for fun?”

All the attention in the room was on Sophie, which normally would have made her uncomfortable, but all _her_ attention was on Cheria, and Asbel didn’t think she even noticed anyone else. Cheria had that effect on people. She could make absolutely anyone feel like they were the only one who mattered.

“I like to read,” Sophie said. “And garden. I had a window box in our apartment.”

“Ooh, gardening! I love to grow herbs for cooking. I can give you some to plant, if you like,” Cheria said.

Sophie nodded eagerly.

Kerri started to tell the Barneses all about the cottage and their plans for it, and with everybody talking like they were, at first Asbel thought maybe things were normal between him and Cheria after all.

Except as the evening went on, he began to realize that she never actually looked at or spoke to him directly. If he tried to ask her a question, which he only did once or twice because her reaction made him feel so small, she would deflect it, turning it to someone else without acknowledging him at all. He could tell by the way Kerri and Frederic glanced at him afterward that it wasn’t his imagination. Only Sophie seemed not to notice.

For her part, Sophie was clearly enchanted with Cheria. It was hard not to be. Cheria asked questions, listened carefully to the answers, shared stories of her own, and asked more questions to keep the conversation going. She knew how to make everyone feel involved and at ease. The fact that Asbel felt like he was standing outside in a blizzard watching the rest of them through a half-frosted window was no accident. He was not sorry when it was finally time to leave.

“Wasn’t it nice to see Cheria again?” Kerri asked, cheeriness forced into her voice.

Asbel held the car door open for her. “Is ‘nice’ the word we’re going with?”

“I’m sure she was just nervous.”

Asbel gave her a pointed look.

She smiled back weakly and opted not to force the issue just then.

* * *

Aston Lhant was a low-key man in life, despite his wealth, and he wanted to remain so in death. He had a will—of course he had a will, he was never one to leave any details unattended. The will stated that he wanted to be interred in the family mausoleum, because it was tradition, and there was to be no funeral.

Asbel hated himself for it, but he was relieved. He didn’t want to have to spend the day trying to reminisce about a man he hadn’t seen in a decade. It was better with just him, Kerri, and Sophie.

Except Hubert should have been there too. Asbel left another message on his voicemail but he wasn’t holding his breath at this point.

Lhant residents had been sending flowers and fruit baskets since Aston’s death, Kerri said, and Asbel could tell she was touched but also somewhat uncomfortable about it. He thought he understood. Since there was no funeral, he suggested instead sending individual cards thanking people for their kindness.

“Something simple,” Kerri agreed. “Good stock, with black and silver print.” Just the thought seemed to make her feel a little better.

It was a hot day when the three of them laid Aston to rest. Asbel never knew what to say to Aston, and it seemed his father’s passing hadn’t changed that. He didn’t even know what to feel.


	4. Chapter 4

For the next few days, he, Sophie, and even Kerri immersed themselves in making the cottage livable. They had some guys from the hardware store help them put the windows and doors in, though Asbel had to offer to pay them extra when they found out it was “that old haunted house.”

There were a few more strange occurrences—more footsteps, items disappearing and reappearing elsewhere, and once, the new window left sitting in the guest bedroom waiting to be installed winding up inexplicably broken—but there were more people moving around in the house, and he wasn’t constantly tracking all of them, so Asbel did his best to shrug these events off. It could be anything, and not necessarily a ghost.

Sophie didn’t say anything about it, and he didn’t want to be the one to bring it up if she didn’t. It was quite possible she hadn’t even noticed. Maybe neither of them would ever even think about it again.

* * *

The final days of spring slipped into summer. Tourists and seasonal residents began to arrive in earnest. Lhant wasn’t a huge tourist spot, but it was the kind of quaint old town that drew respectable amounts of increased activity in the summer every year. Most people who came through stayed at one of the little inns in town, though there were a few rental properties on the outskirts too.

The cottage reached inhabitable status and Sophie and Asbel officially moved in, though Kerri was sad to see them leave the manor. He promised they’d come over for dinner every week and she was welcome to come out to see them whenever she wanted.

One afternoon he left Sophie happily working in the garden while he went to go get more paint for the outside of the house and a few other odds and ends.

After he was finished at the hardware store, he decided to stop by Frederic’s bakery. He wanted to say hello to the old man, and cupcakes also sounded excellent just then. Instead of moving his car, he opted to take a stroll through town. It really was such a nice afternoon.

There was a fountain in the town square where, as with any fountain, people liked to make wishes. Asbel wondered what the city did with the money. He decided to donate some himself while he was there.

Somebody was already standing by the fountain when he got to it—not unusual in and of itself. It was a man, about the same age as Asbel, with medium-length blond hair, a fine scarf wrapped around his neck despite the sun, and a pensive expression on his face. He didn’t seem to notice Asbel at all.

Asbel decided not to interrupt him. He moved to the opposite side of the fountain, settled on his wish, and threw his coins in. After a moment of being distracted by the shininess of the reflected sun, he looked up again at the man on the other side of the fountain.

The man was looking back. They made eye contact, and suddenly Asbel remembered.

“Richard?” he hazarded.

The man blinked, squinted. Then the penny dropped. “Asbel?”

“Hey! I never expected to see you here! Nobody told me you’d moved back!” Asbel moved around the fountain to stand next to him.

Richard Windor wasn’t as much taller than him as Asbel had expected, though it was hard to be sure since Richard was slouching. He was lanky, with long features, which seemed to stretch him out. They had been young the last time they’d seen each other, just teenagers.

“I haven’t, exactly,” Richard said, loosening his scarf a little. “I just came back here for… work, I guess you could say.”

“Oh yeah? What do you do?”

Richard cleared his throat and drew himself up slightly. “I’m a novelist, actually.”

“Get out! Anything I might have heard of?”

“It’s possible, though I use a pen name,” Richard said.

Asbel kept looking at him expectantly.

“Well, I’ve done a number of projects, but I’m best known for… the _Mask of Barona_ series.”

“No way! Sophie loves those! That’s _you_?”

Richard tried to look embarrassed, but he clearly was holding himself back from preening. “Guilty as charged. Is… Sophie your girlfriend?”

“My daughter.”

“Your _daughter_?”

“Why is everybody always so shocked to hear about that?” Asbel muttered, starting to feel a little offended. “She’s my foster daughter, if that helps you swallow the revelation a little better.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to imply anything. It’s simply that in my mind, you’re still that middle school boy who was always complaining about being grounded yet again for, oh, something or other.” Richard had a fond look on his face as he spoke.

“I didn’t get in trouble all that much, did I?”

Richard shrugged. “My nostalgia may be exaggerating things a bit.”

“Well, I like to think I’ve grown up a little since then,” Asbel said.

“Haven’t we all.” Richard smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Asbel.”

“You too. You know, I just moved back here myself. I left right after high school.”

“That’s curious. You mean to tell me we both moved back here at the same time? It must be kismet.”

“I don’t know about all that, but it sure is a funny coincidence anyway. I don’t know if you heard, but my dad died recently. That’s why I moved back here.”

“Oh! I’m sorry to hear it. My father died not so long ago too—he was quite ill. It’s not a pain I’d wish on an enemy, never mind a friend.”

“Same,” said Asbel. “I’m sorry about your dad, too. I heard about that in the news, but I didn’t know how to get in touch and I didn’t know if…”

Richard waved a hand. “No mind.”

“So are you here in Lhant alone?”

“Yes, it’s just me.”

“Then how’d you like to come have dinner with me and Sophie tonight? We’d love to have you.”

“That’s a gracious offer. Thank you, Asbel. I accept.”

And so Asbel found himself unexpectedly stopping by the grocery store first, Richard in tow, picking out ingredients for a dinner for three. Unexpectedly but not unhappily.

“I really appreciate this, Asbel. You know, I’ve seen a few familiar faces, but you’re the first person who’s recognized me.”

Asbel laughed. “I wish I had your luck. Everybody remembers me and it’s not as flattering as you think.”

“You are a memorable sort of person,” Richard said.

“See, you’re making fun of me.”

“A little.”

They stopped at the bakery and got a dozen cupcakes from Frederic, though Asbel was firm about paying this time. Then he and Richard got in Asbel’s car and started for the cottage. Asbel was surprised to hear Richard and he had been living in the same city almost the whole time before they came back to Lhant, but it was a big city, not the kind of place people tended to randomly bump into each other. Not like Lhant, where it was almost impossible _not_ to.

Richard and Asbel hadn’t quite grown up together the way he and Cheria had. Richard and his father moved to Lhant when Richard was eleven, but Richard’s father’s political career had taken off over the next few years and they moved away abruptly when Richard was sixteen. To be honest, Asbel had thought about Richard a lot in the intervening years. He greatly regretted that they hadn’t kept in touch, but Asbel really hadn’t kept in touch with anybody from Lhant.

“I was really hoping I’d run into you,” Richard admitted. “I didn’t even know you’d moved away.”

“Yeah, it was kind of a last-minute decision,” Asbel admitted. “I finished high school and suddenly it was like I could see the rest of my life staring me in the face. It looked a lot like my dad’s. I didn’t want to live only going through the same motions he did. So I packed up and left. Took classes in-between working every job I could get hired for. It was a slog, but it was satisfying. And I wouldn’t have met Sophie otherwise.” He laughed. “Sorry for the life story.”

“No, no need to apologize,” Richard said. “Your candidness was always one of my favorite qualities of yours. Tell me about Sophie.”

“Sophie? She’s great. I met her a little less than a year ago. I think both of us were feeling a little lost at the… uh-oh.”

“Pardon?”

Asbel slowed, pulling over to the side of the road. “Was I speeding?”

Richard glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the flashing lights. “Oh. No, I don’t think so.”

Asbel sighed. “Maybe I’ve got a taillight out or something. Man, what a pain. I’m sorry about this.”

The officer got out of his car and came to Asbel’s window, which was dutifully rolled down. “License and registration.”

Asbel looked up at the officer as he handed over the requested items. That required real effort, since the man was enormous. He was about Asbel’s mom’s age but Asbel was pretty sure the man could have squashed him like a grape. He decided cooperation was in his best interests.

“What seems to be problem, officer?” he asked in what he hoped was a jaunty, friendly voice.

“Your name is Asbel Lhant?” the officer asked.

“Yes?”

“Are you unsure?” The man flicked up his sunglasses, examining Asbel with shrewd brown eyes.

“No, no sir. I’m definitely Asbel Lhant.”

“I see. I’m going to need you to step out of the car.”

Asbel threw a mildly panicked glance at Richard, who looked just as confused and concerned as he felt. He realized he was hesitating, though, and suddenly he had an image of the cop grabbing him by the collar and dragging him out through the open window. Without any more delay, he threw off his seatbelt and quickly got out.

“Turn around,” the officer said, grabbing his handcuffs. “I have a warrant for your arrest.”

“What? What? Are you kidding? What for? I haven’t done anything!”

Richard got out of the passenger side. “Asbel! Don’t say anything without an attorney present. I know one I can get in touch with.” He pulled out his phone and started dialing.

“What am I being charged with?” Asbel said, feeling similar to how he suspected a deer pinned in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen wheeler must.

The man spun him around so they were face to face, which did absolutely nothing to diminish that sensation. “Failure… to introduce yourself to the new sheriff sooner.”

There was a moment of silence, then suddenly the man burst into laughter, big booming guffaws. “Hi, Asbel. I’m Malik Caesar, the sheriff.” He quickly removed the handcuffs and took Asbel’s newly-freed hand in a firm shake.

Asbel’s legs felt like jelly. Malik might have been the only thing holding him up. “What?” was all he could manage.

“I mentioned to Frederic that I wanted to meet you,” Malik went on. “So he called me just now and said you’d be coming this way, so we decided… say, are you all right? You look a little pale.”

“Huh?”

“This is gross misconduct,” Richard said. “Can’t you see you nearly scared him half to death? Looks like I’ll be calling that attorney after all.”

Malik held up his hands. “Whoa now. There’s no need for that. It was just a little prank.”

“Frankly, I’m shocked, Sheriff,” Richard went on. “Shocked and appalled that you can’t take a joke any better than Asbel.”

Another brief pause, then both Malik and Richard were laughing. Asbel opened his car door and sat down.

It took a couple minutes of slow and steady breathing before Asbel got his heart rate back to normal. During that time, Malik and Richard talked like old friends. He wasn’t positive, but he thought he heard them making plans for coffee. Each of them would glance at him and say, “Eh, Asbel?” from time to time, which seemed to satisfy the illusion that Asbel was also participating in the conversation and not simply trying to hold down lunch.

“Ah, Asbel,” Malik said, gripping his shoulder like a gorilla might, were it so inclined. “I’m sorry to have scared you like that. I couldn’t pass up the chance.”

“It’s all right,” Asbel said. He figured that was an acceptable lie to tell law enforcement. He reasoned it really _would_ be all right eventually. Someday he might even look back and laugh, or at the very least not feel a panic response.

Somehow he and Richard got back on the road and Asbel drove the rest of the way without incident.

Richard peered out at the house as they pulled up. “Say, isn’t that the place everybody always said was haunted?”

“It’s not haunted,” Asbel said, putting the car in park and turning off the engine. He paused. “It might be a little haunted.”

“Oh.” Richard looked out at the house again. “It’s nice.”

“Hey!” somebody called as they got out of the car. At first Asbel thought it was Sophie, because who else would it be, but Sophie didn’t shout like that.

He looked up and saw someone running across the lawn towards them, waving their arms. He thought it was a young woman, very petite—barely taller than Sophie—with short, two-toned hair and a big friendly and open grin.

“Are you guys Sophie’s dads?” she asked them, coming to a stop just in front of Asbel.

“I am,” Asbel said, involuntarily taking a step back. “Who are you?”

“I’m your neighbor, Pascal!” She put her hands on her hips, a superhero pose. “I was out of town and then I came back and POW! Surprise, Pascal, you have neighbors!”

“Oh. Nice to meet you. I’m Asbel and I guess you already met Sophie.” Asbel glanced around, but Sophie was nowhere in sight. She’d probably run for the house at the first sight of this woman. To be honest Asbel had to fight the impulse to do the same. She was looking at him like she wanted to put him under a microscope. “And this is my friend Richard.”

“Nice to meet you!” Pascal took his hand and shook it vigorously. “That Sophie is a cutie. Sure is shy, though.”

“She is a bit,” Asbel said, never less sure that his shoulder wasn’t dislocated. He inched away as soon as her grip loosened, moving to the back of the car to start unloading groceries.

“You say you were out of town, Pascal?” Richard said, watching the scene with amusement.

“Yeah, I kinda go all over,” Pascal said vaguely. “I’m a mechanical engineer, so…” She seemed to think this explained everything, but Asbel was more confused than ever.

“It was very nice meeting you,” Richard said. “Perhaps we should have drinks sometime.”

“Sounds keen!” Pascal said. “Hey, did you know this place is supposed to be haunted?”

“Oh?” Richard said politely as Asbel moved towards the front door.

“Yeah! I didn’t hear about it until after I’d bought my place otherwise I would have taken this one. Tell me if anything fuh-reaky happens, will you?”

“We will. See you later!”

Somehow they both managed to make it inside, and Asbel quickly shut and—just to be safe—locked the door.

“See you later! Tell Sophie I said hey!” Pascal called from outside.

Richard and Asbel exchanged glances, then simultaneously burst out laughing.

“I do believe this is Make Asbel Uncomfortable For Richard’s Entertainment Day,” Richard said once he caught his breath.

“Yeah. I’m surprised Cheria hasn’t popped up to join the party.”

Richard’s eyebrows went up. “Cheria? What about Cheria?”

“It’s nothing,” Asbel said quickly. “Come on, I’ll show you around. Sophie?”

She poked her head out of her room, eyes flicking to Richard before going back to Asbel. “Is she gone?”

“Pascal? Yeah. Sophie, this is Richard Windor, another old friend of mine. Richard, Sophie.”

She inched her way out into the hall. “Hi.”

“Hello, Sophie. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Are you staying for dinner?”

“If that’s all right with you.”

Sophie considered it for a minute, then nodded.

Pleased, Asbel started dinner going, then showed Richard around the house, explaining the improvements they’d made and the design touches Kerri had added.

“Hey, a boat,” Richard said when they reached the office, pointing.

“That’s Uncle Hubert’s,” Sophie explained. “I’m taking care of it until he comes home for it.”

“Oh, so you’ve met Hubert then?”

“No.”

Richard waited for more, realized he wasn’t going to get it, and turned to Asbel instead.

“Hubert never came home after my dad died,” Asbel explained. “He never got in touch at all, as far as I know.”

“I’d ask if you were worried, but that sounds like Hubert,” Richard said. “Unfortunate. I’m sorry.”

Asbel shrugged as if it didn’t bother him, even though it did. “That’s his choice, I guess. Anyway this is the guest bedroom.”

“Dusty rose. I like it. Oh, dear. When did the window break?”

Asbel’s stomach dropped. Richard was right. The new window they’d just installed was smashed. “No way. Again? Sophie, did you notice this?”

Sophie shook her head.

“Again?” Richard asked.

“The first window we got was broken before we even put it in,” Asbel explained. “Nobody said they saw it happen. You didn’t hear anything?”

Sophie shook her head again. She was out in the garden when he left, so it wasn’t so strange she didn’t hear it.

“It was broken from the inside,” Richard said. “See how there’s no glass in here?”

Asbel stared at the broken window, completely befuddled. He turned back to Sophie. “Hey, can you go check on dinner for me?”

“But—”

“Please?”

She looked like she was ready to fight him on it, but instead she nodded. “All right.”

“Asbel, I hate to cast aspersions, but could Sophie be responsible for this?” Richard said.

Asbel didn’t even consider it. “No. Absolutely not. Sophie’s not that kind of kid. Something else caused this. A tree branch or a bird or…”

“From the inside?”

“I’d believe ghost before I’d believe Sophie,” Asbel said.

Richard rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, this gives me a great idea for a novel.”

“In your novel does the guy have to keep buying windows?” Asbel asked dryly.

Richard waved a hand. “No, that would be boring. Unless… I could make it funny…”

“Dinner is still in the kitchen cooking and nothing is on fire,” Sophie said, suddenly beside Asbel.

He jumped. He hadn’t even heard her. “Oh good, okay. Thank you.”

“You write novels?” Sophie asked Richard, making Asbel wonder how much she’d heard.

“Yes,” Richard said. “Asbel says you like the Mask of Barona?”

“I _love_ the Mask of Barona,” Sophie corrected.

“Well,” Richard said, posturing a bit, “I wrote the Mask of Barona.”

“But your name is Richard.”

“I used a pen name.”

Sophie looked at Asbel, who nodded.

Sophie held up her clenched fists. “Will you sign my books? Are you going to write more? Will there ever be a movie? Does the Mask love anyone especially?”

“Yes, yes, I don’t know, and that’s a secret.”

“We have Mask of Barona fruit snacks. Do you want some?”

“Ah, they’re quite delicious, aren’t they? I think I had better wait to eat them, though, lest I spoil my appetite.”

Sophie nodded, understanding completely.

“Yeah, how could my cooking compete with artificially-flavored balls of wax?” Asbel muttered.

Sophie patted him on the shoulder. “Your food is good too.”

Asbel sighed. At least she seemed to put them on the same level.

* * *

After dinner they moved to the living room to talk. Despite only knowing Asbel for about five years, Richard seemed to have almost as many embarrassing stories about him as Kerri did. At some point, Sophie dozed off in Asbel’s lap.

“I apologize for suggesting earlier that Sophie might have lied,” Richard said.

Asbel shrugged. “You don’t know her.”

“Regardless, it was insensitive of me. It’s curious, but after being in this house, I’m coming to understand why people think it’s haunted. It’s not just the window. It almost feels like there’s another presence here.”

“Sophie said something like that too,” Asbel said. “I don’t feel it, but maybe I’m just dense.”

“You have other strengths,” Richard said diplomatically.

“Wow, it got late,” Asbel said, suddenly noticing the time. “Hey, why don’t you just crash here? We do have a guest bedroom—oh, wait. The window is broken.”

“Actually, that wouldn’t bother me,” Richard said. “It’s a warm night, so I would probably have left it open anyway. At the very least, it would save you the trouble of driving me back to the inn.”

“I was just going to make you walk,” Asbel said, then quickly added, “Kidding. Yeah, sure, if that’s fine with you then.”

Asbel woke Sophie just enough to send her off to bed, then helped Richard get settled.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Asbel said before heading to his own room.

“An old priest and a young priest, maybe,” said Richard.

Asbel rolled his eyes and pointedly switched off the light. “Good night, Richard.”


	5. Chapter 5

Asbel woke up the next morning to his phone ringing. He somehow managed to answer it without fully regaining consciousness, but he was too asleep to realize the impressiveness of this feat. “Hello?”

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” his mother said. “Cheria and Frederic want to come over tonight since they haven’t seen the house yet. Is that all right?”

Asbel sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Cheria _wants_ to come over?”

“Well, Frederic said she was looking forward to seeing Sophie again.”

“Sophie. That makes more sense.”

He could hear noises coming from the living room, so after hanging up, he threw on a bathrobe, finger-combed his hair, and went to go check it out.

This time it definitely wasn’t a ghost. It was Sophie and Richard. Richard had wrapped his scarf around his face like a mask and appeared to be giving some kind of performance.

“When trouble calls, just call me!” he announced.

Sophie tossed something at him and he pulled down his scarf enough to catch it in his mouth. Asbel realized it was a fruit snack. That was about the only question he was able to answer, though.

“Good… morning…?”

Sophie jumped up, holding the fruit snacks out for him. “Breakfast?”

“No thanks.”

“I’m the Mask of Barona,” Richard explained, correctly reading Asbel’s expression. “Sometimes I like to do this while I’m writing. It helps get me in the right frame of mind.”

Asbel thought about it really hard for almost a full minute, but he just couldn’t tell if Richard was joking or not. “Did you sleep all right?”

Richard smiled. “I can’t complain. I would like to change my clothes, though.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Asbel said. “Let me just… put on some pants.”

“Is Richard leaving?” Sophie asked.

“For now,” Richard said.

“So you’ll come back?”

“If it’s okay with Asbel.”

“Of course it is! Now come on, get…” Asbel paused, realizing he was the only one who wasn’t actually dressed. “…your shoes on and I’ll be right back.”

The ride back to town was uneventful, but when Asbel reached the inn where Richard was staying, he abruptly made a decision. “Hey, Richard, how’d you like to stay with us? We have the room. I’ll get the window fixed today. And Sophie and I would love it. Right, Sophie?”

From the backseat, Sophie nodded.

Richard seemed to be studying Asbel’s face for a moment. At last he smiled. “How could I possibly refuse such a generous offer? Besides, your house has been wonderfully inspirational. I was up half the night with ideas.”

“You said you slept well!”

Richard held up a finger. “I said I couldn’t complain, which I still feel no reason to.”

“Oh. Oh, one more thing. My mom and Cheria and Frederic are coming over for dinner tonight. Is that all right?”

“Of course. I can be somewhere else during that time, if you prefer.”

“I don’t prefer.”

“Cheria’s coming over too?” Sophie said eagerly.

Asbel wished he felt half as excited. He wondered if he should wear a sweater.

All the same, he decided since they already had to go buy another new window, he might as well pick up some chicken to make for dinner. He remembered Cheria had a particular fondness for it, and considering it was what she made when they were at her house, he suspected that hadn’t changed. He hoped that might aid the thaw a little.

He encouraged Richard to find some things he’d like to keep around the house to eat while he was staying there too, so they split up briefly. When Asbel found him again Richard was carefully examining a small package of something. “What’s that?”

“Natto,” Richard said.

“Oh. Why do you have it?”

“I like it.”

Asbel blinked. “What, you mean, like… on purpose?”

Richard laughed. “If the smell is too much for you, I won’t get it.”

“No, no, go ahead. I just think you’re a little weird, is all.”

“You would not be the first, but it’s your loss.” Richard gave his hair the tiniest of flips.

When they left, Asbel saw a police car parked across the street outside the post office. Malik was just coming out of it, sliding his aviators back on. He spotted Asbel and waved.

“Who’s that?” Sophie asked.

“The sheriff,” Richard said, waving back. “He tried to arrest Asbel yesterday.”

“Oh? Did you break the law again?”

“No, it was just—hey, what do you mean, ‘again’?” Asbel wondered why he only surrounded himself with people who made no observable indication of whether or not they were joking.

They drove back home, chicken and third replacement window in tow. To Asbel’s relief Malik did not follow them.

He felt considerably less relief when he opened the front door to his home and found the place a wreck.

His first thought was that there had been a burglary. He told Sophie to wait outside, but she slipped away from Richard and came after him. Fortunately if anyone had been in there, they were long gone.

“Is anything missing?” Richard asked, surveying the damage. Furniture was overturned. Lamps were on the floor. Curtains were pulled down. Windows were opened, but the only broken one was still the one in the guest bedroom.

“Not that I can tell, but it’s hard to be sure without being more thorough,” Asbel said.

Suddenly Sophie gasped and ran off. She returned a moment later with Hubert’s boat. “It’s still here and it’s okay,” she said, sounding immensely relieved.

Well, that was nice for _Hubert_.

“Try not to touch anything else,” Richard said, dialing on his phone. “I’m going to have Malik come out and take a look.”

While they waited for Malik to get there, the three of them looked around a little more. Asbel would have to go through all the closets and drawers to be sure about the little stuff, but nothing big seemed to be gone. Not as much stuff was broken as it first appeared, either. Almost all the lightbulbs would need to be replaced, as well as one or two lampshades and a few dishes, but that was still better than he feared. Mostly everything was just a big mess.

Richard laughed suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’m sorry. That was terribly inappropriate of me. It’s just, I was thinking that this was kind of how your bedroom always used to look when we were kids.”

“I wasn’t _this_ messy, was I?” Asbel looked around. “I was normal kid messy. This is a disaster.”

“You say that as if the two are mutually exclusive.”

Malik arrived then, and they explained what had happened—or at least what they knew of it, which wasn’t much.

“Did you lock the door when you left and was it still locked when you returned?” Malik asked, examining the front door.

“Yes,” Asbel said. “I locked up when we left. Right, Richard?”

“You did, but we don’t know if it was locked when we got back,” Richard pointed out. “You didn’t check.”

“Oh.” Asbel hadn’t thought of it. There’d been no reason to check. “The door was shut though. Nothing looked weird or out of place until we opened the door.”

“What about the back door? Windows?” Malik pressed.

“All the windows were open when we came in even though I closed them before we left.” A lightbulb went off in Asbel’s head. “The window in the guest bedroom is broken. Was broken yesterday, I mean, before all this. We were going to replace it today.”

“Show me.”

Asbel led everyone back to it, feeling like a very sad parade leader.

“This could be a point of entry,” Malik said, examining the jagged edges. “I’d expect them to have cut themselves at some point, but I don’t see any blood. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Have you seen anyone strange lurking around in the area lately?”

“Yoo-hoo! Anybody home? Sophie? Asbel? What’s-his-face?”

“To answer your question,” Asbel said as Sophie quickly ducked behind him.

Pascal found them almost immediately even though nobody called back, as if she were some kind of friend-seeking missile. “Here you are! I wanted to make sure everybody was okay. Boy, that must have been some party. Heya, Sheriff.”

“Pascal,” Malik said. “Did you see something?”

“You mean from the party?” She scratched her head and rocked from side to side, switching from one foot to the other. “No, but I sure did hear a lot. It was like, BOOM! SMASH! FWOOSH! I was kinda upset you didn’t invite me, to be honest, but bygones I guess.”

“When did you hear all this?”

“Oh, I dunno, about an hour or so ago?”

Asbel shrugged. “So sometime while we were gone.”

“Wait, you guys weren’t even here? That’s a weird way to have a party,” Pascal said.

Everyone in the room silently and unanimously decided not to bother.

“You didn’t see anybody around at the time? Somebody coming or going? Maybe climbing in through a window?” Malik asked.

“Nope, not a soul,” Pascal said. “Was it this window?” She crossed the room to the broken window, causing Sophie to flee around Asbel and take shelter on another side of him.

“Maybe,” Malik said.

“Hmm. Oh!” Pascal planted her fist in her palm. “You know what I bet it was? The ghost!”

There was a long pause, though everyone was quiet for different reasons.

Malik was the first one to break it. “The… ghost?”

“Oh yeah! I’m surprised you don’t know about it. Supposedly somebody died here a long time ago and they _never left_.” She added a spooky tone to her voice and wiggled her fingers in Malik’s face for effect.

“Somebody died?” Asbel repeated. He suddenly realized he had never actually heard any kind of story, just that the house was haunted.

“Well, yeah, how else do you get a ghost?” Pascal pointed out.

“Uh, true, I guess. I never really thought about it.”

“Yeah.” Pascal gave him that microscope look again.

“What else do you know about it, Pascal?” Richard asked.

She shrugged. “I dunno. Not much. Somebody, died, never left. Yeah, I think that’s it!”

“Hmm. Perhaps there would be documentation at the library.”

“Aww, I just want to see something spooky happen!”

“Pascal,” Malik said in a firm, almost dad-like voice. Asbel realized that the two of them had recognized one another right away and wondered what kind of run-ins they had had in the past.

“Nuts,” Pascal said, scuffing the ground with her boot. “Well, I’ll see you guys around later, I guess. Invite me over next time you have a ghost party though! I mean it!”

“You heard that, right? Next ghost party,” Richard said, nudging Asbel.

“I’m going to have my deputy Victoria come help me sweep for prints and anything else we might find,” Malik said, pulling out his cell phone. “Anyway in a small town like this, people always talk. I’m sure we’ll hear something.”

“Ah man. I hope we can get this place cleaned up in time,” Asbel said.

“If nothing else, we can focus on common areas and leave the bedrooms for later,” Richard suggested.

Asbel nodded, because he knew it was the most practical solution, but privately he hated the idea. It took him a minute to figure out why: it was because he didn’t want Cheria to see everything in disarray. He wasn’t sure why though. Maybe he wanted to impress her with how responsible he was now, prove to her he was a different person from ten years ago. He had to admit to himself that whatever the reason Cheria had for freezing him out, he really wanted things to be okay between them again.

While Malik and Victoria, his deputy, worked, Asbel decided to use the time productively and finish painting the outside of the house. He and Sophie had chosen sky blue with white trim. Most of the original paint had peeled off when they moved in, but he was pretty sure it used to be brown. Brown was all right, but both of them wanted something brighter and a little cheerier.

“Do you ever take a break?” Richard asked, watching him get the ladder and paint.

“Not when there’s something that needs doing,” Asbel said.

“Come help me in the garden, Richard,” Sophie said, tugging on his sleeve.

They were all pretty tired and dirty by the time Malik and Victoria finished up, but Asbel clapped his hands and hurried them into getting to work cleaning. There was more time left than Asbel feared but there was a lot to do.

“Oh, crap. Lightbulbs!” Asbel said, suddenly remembering they’d been broken.

“There’s no reason why the hardware store should be closed,” Richard said. “Why don’t you go run and get some? We can keep working while you’re gone.”

“Because you won’t,” Asbel said. He could picture it now: just one on their own he could trust, but the two of them together would start goofing off right away.

Richard made no attempt to deny it. “Do you have candles, perhaps?”

Asbel looked at Richard, not bothering to ask why he thought he would have enough candles to fill in for actual lights.

Richard shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“I could drive to town,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, not until never.”

“I’ll go,” Richard said. “You can trust me not to steal your car.”

“Of course.” That wasn’t even a thought that crossed Asbel’s mind. “I don’t trust you not to, like, have it painted pink, but…” He held out his keys. “If you want to get me lightbulbs…”

“You’ve offered me lodging in your home free of charge. I would love to get you lightbulbs.” Richard gave a little bow as he took the keys. “And as a bonus, I will not have your car repainted… today.”

“It would be cute pink,” Sophie said.

Richard cackled on his way out the front door.

Asbel groaned. “Get your own pink car.”

“ _Can_ I?” Sophie asked.

“No!”

* * *

Asbel’s hair was still wet when the doorbell rang. Still, he was pretty impressed that they managed to get everything done in time.

He let Sophie answer the door so that Cheria got the chance to smell the chicken before she had to see his face. He thought that was pretty clever of him.

He hugged his mom, even though it hadn’t been that long since they’d seen each other. She seemed to be making up for ten years of no hugs. He was okay with that. Frederic shook his hand, and that just left him with…

“Hey, Cheria.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and only made as much eye contact as necessary. “Asbel. Thank you for having us over.”

He had this whole speech prepared apologizing and asking if they could repair things and what he would need to do but it all flew out of his head. All he managed was, “Uh, yeah. You, uh, look…”

Cheria latched onto the first distraction she could. “Richard!”

“Who wants hors d’œuvres?” Richard announced, appearing out of the kitchen with a plate.

“What a pleasant surprise! I had no idea you were in town!”

Oh. Asbel must have forgotten to mention that.

All the attention in the room shifted to Richard, whom even Kerri and Frederic remembered, despite his insistence that he was forgettable. They oohed and ahhed when he told them about his profession, though it was obvious to Asbel that Richard was more comfortable hearing about what _they_ had been up to.

“You don’t look like you’re having fun. Crudités?” Sophie offered him the plate Richard had brought out.

“No, it’s not that. I’m glad everyone is having a good time.”

“If a ghost shows up, will we need to invite Pascal?”

“I don’t think we have enough crudités.”

Sophie nodded. “And that would be rude. Rudité.”

Asbel decided it was time for dinner. He was proud of this meal, and enough of the dishes had survived the burglary/ghost party that he wouldn’t have to serve it on paper plates.

He realized when they moved to the dining room that the overhead lights were not on, though, and when he flipped the switch, nothing happened.

“Oh, no, did I miss those?” Richard muttered, appearing at his side. “What to do… oh! Good thing I also got…” With a flourish, he produced a small object from seemingly nowhere. “Candles!”

“Where were you keeping that?”

But Richard was already heading back to the table, where he set out half a dozen candles and lit them carefully.

“Ooh,” Cheria said. “Ambience.”

“Yes, Asbel always does know how to add the right touches, doesn’t he?” Richard glanced up at Asbel and winked.

Asbel stifled a groan and went back to his seat at the table. At least everyone was enjoying the food. And Cheria was eating it. He had been a little worried she would just spit it back out, or at least some classy version of that.

“So you teach kindergarten, Cheria? I imagine school must be out by now?” Richard asked.

“Yes, just last week,” Cheria said. “I’m helping with the school’s summer programs and putting in more hours at Grandfather’s bakery until fall. I wish I could help Grandfather year-round so I could make sure he wasn’t pushing himself so hard, but…”

“Children. They think we’re helpless without them,” Frederic said to Kerri with a shake of his head.

“It’s like they don’t even know who used to have to wipe their bottoms for them,” Kerri said.

“Mom!”

“Now, Asbel, I was only speaking in a general sense.”

“Yeah, but who else at this table’s bottom have you wiped?“ Asbel dropped his voice as low as it would go but he still wanted to disappear.

“Well, now that we're all thinking about Asbel’s butt,” said Richard, “who’s ready for dessert?”

“Oh, what will we be having?” Frederic asked.

“Peach parfait.”

Everybody burst out laughing.

“Ha, ha, ha,” Asbel said mockingly, getting to his feet. “They’re in season right now, okay? Perverts.” He backed out of the room, refusing to give them anymore satisfaction.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, a light summer storm unexpectedly rolled in. This was hardly unusual, so they closed all the windows and resigned themselves to indoor activities for the day. Sophie decided to reread all the Mask of Barona books, repeatedly pausing to ask Richard questions, which he dutifully answered as he sat with a pen and paper, scratching out ideas for his new novel.

Asbel worked on his checkbook. Richard laughed at him but he really just couldn’t relax if there was work that needed to be done.

The doorbell rang and Sophie jumped up to answer it.

“Make sure you see who it is before opening it,” Asbel called to her.

“She would anyway,” Richard said. “To make sure it’s not Pascal.”

It wasn’t Pascal. It was Cheria, and she was soaked.

Asbel jumped up. “Hey! Come in, come in!” He ushered her inside, shutting the rain out behind her.

“Boy, it’s really coming down out there,” she said. “Sorry, I’m dripping all over your floor.”

“Don’t worry about it. Sophie, can you go get Cheria a towel?”

“Um. I didn’t mean to drop by so unexpectedly, I just needed to talk to you,” Cheria said a little uncertainly.

“That’s okay. I’ve kind of been wanting to talk to you too. Here,” he said, taking the towels Sophie came back with. “Let’s go talk in my room.”

Cheria started to pat down her hair and clothes while he shut the bedroom door behind them. Despite having traveled here herself, she suddenly seemed at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “For whatever I did. You’re obviously not happy with me.”

She looked a little taken aback, but she quickly set her mouth into a firm line. “Ten years, Asbel. Ten years without a phone call or a letter or even a postcard.”

“Do people still send postcards?”

“Not the point, Asbel!”

“Right. Sorry.” He scratched his head. “I didn’t talk to anybody from Lhant in that time.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Her voice was low and calm, which almost made it worse. “That you were a jerk to everyone equally?”

“Uh, well, that’s not _exactly_ how I meant it, but…”

“You know, I came over here thinking I was going to apologize but talking to you just reminds me how mad I am,” she went on. “I just… I thought we mattered to you, Asbel. I thought _I_ mattered.”

With great effort, Asbel swallowed past a lump in his throat. “That’s… I guess because my mom forgave me…”

“Because she’s your mother, and because she was just happy to have you back,” Cheria pointed out. “I remember how she was after you left. And I remember how she was after Aston died.”

“You think I don’t feel guilty about that?”

“I don’t know, Asbel. I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know what you’re feeling. You don’t really share.”

“What do you want from me, Cheria?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Some kind of _sign_ you get how much you hurt us?”

“You say you’re not a mind reader, but how was I supposed to know this upset you so much?”

Cheria reeled back from him—just a little, but enough. “Asbel. You didn’t speak to anyone for _ten years_. How do you _expect_ us to feel?”

“But my mom—”

“I’m not your mother, Asbel! And just because she forgave you doesn’t mean you deserve that forgiveness or that you shouldn’t try to make it up to her anyway!”

“I have been! Sort of…” He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hand. “I know I screwed up. I’ve felt guilty about it a lot.”

“And I suppose there were no phones in your neighborhood.”

“Look, Cheria. You don’t understand. I thought it was all or nothing. I thought that if I had any kind of contact it didn’t count. And I was busy _all the time_. By the time any of that changed, I thought… I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think anybody would _want_ to hear from me at that point.”

Cheria shook her head. “You’re such an idiot.”

“I know it,” he said miserably.

She sighed and sat down next to him, then quickly jumped back up. “Sorry, I’m still damp. Anyway, don’t start feeling all sorry for yourself. This isn’t—”

There was a loud crash. Asbel was immediately on his feet, throwing open the door. “Soph—?”

Sophie and Richard nearly fell into the room.

“What were you guys—were you _eavesdropping_?” Cheria gasped.

“It was Richard’s idea,” Sophie said.

“More importantly, what was that sound?” Richard said loudly. “Way to throw me under the bus, partner,” he added under his breath to Sophie, who shrugged.

Asbel felt a growing sense of dread. “Don’t tell me…” He pushed past Richard and ran down the hall. Nonplussed, the others followed.

Just as he feared, the guest bedroom window was shattered, rain pouring in onto the floor. Asbel pulled the curtains closed and tucked them in under the window to help keep more rain from getting in. “What the heck is going on?”

“Perhaps a piece of plywood would help?” Richard suggested.

“Yeah, I think there’s some in the shed.”

“I’ll help.”

“What? There’s no need for both of us to get wet.”

Richard took his arm and steered him towards the door. “I’ll help.”

“Take an umbrella!” Cheria called.

“I had a thought.” Richard waited until Asbel was about to nail up the plywood before he spoke again. “The ghost doesn’t seem to like this window.”

“Yeah, I had that same thought,” Asbel muttered.

“I suspect perhaps the window represents something negative to the ghost,” Richard went on. “The window must have caused something bad, or prevented something good, likely in conjunction with the ghost’s death.”

“Okay, so… what does that mean, exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” Richard admitted. “But I think if we discover our ghost’s identity, we’ll find the answer.”

Asbel turned to look at Richard, holding the umbrella over both of them. They hadn’t stood this close in awhile. At first Asbel thought it was the dim gray light outside, but he realized Richard’s skin looked a little wan and waxy, and there seemed to be dark circles under his eyes. “Richard, are you all right?”

“What? Of course I am. Why do you ask?”

Asbel shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.” He went back to nailing up the plywood. “How would we find out? About this ghost.”

“The library would be our best bet,” Richard said. “Microfiche.”

“What are microfish?”

“Tiny fish, probably, but I said micro _fiche_. It’s how they store old newspapers.”

“Oh.” Asbel supposed he’d understand when he saw.

“If there was an unusual death, it probably made the papers. Do you remember anything, anything at all, about what supposedly happened here?”

Asbel shook his head. The board was up, so they returned the toolbox and headed back inside. “Just that it was haunted. My mom said it was a rumor even when she was a kid, so whatever happened, it had to have been at least fifty years or so ago.”

“Well, I suppose that narrows it down a little.”

“Why don’t we just, like… Google it?”

Richard looked at him as if he’d suggested sacrificing infants. “Asbel. Have you no sense of artistry? Of ambience? Of showmanship?”

“Uh, I guess not?”

“Clearly not. Besides, I already tried and couldn’t find anything.”

Asbel shook his head. “So what does that mean?”

Richard shrugged. “Probably nothing. Things don’t put themselves on the Internet. It just means no one else has yet.”

“But everything’s on the Internet.”

“If the incident happened fifty or more years ago, it makes sense. If it wasn’t notorious, it may have quickly faded from memory. Think about it: neither of us is familiar with the story, and we grew up here.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Asbel decided not to add, _Just… the library…_

* * *

His nightstand clock said it was 1:12 in the morning but Asbel was wide awake. For the last several hours he’d drifted in and out of sleep, his mind busy going over and over what Cheria had said.

It wasn’t that he didn’t realize his behavior was selfish. And it wasn’t that he never felt guilty about it in the time in-between. He did what he needed to do for himself at the time, but he’d done it in the worst possible way, and he had done almost nothing to make up for it. Had he even apologized to his mother for being out of contact for so long? He still thought it was a bit rich of Cheria to yell at him for supposedly thinking she was a mind reader, but that was maybe beside the point a little.

And now his mind would not let him rest, tormenting him with every mistake he’d ever made, everyone he’d ever hurt, every personal fault and failure. He felt like nothing _but_ faults and failures.

He got up and made his way to the kitchen for a glass of water. His throat was like sandpaper.

He was surprised to find someone already in the dining room. Richard was sitting at the table in his bathrobe looking for all the world like a zombie.

“Richard?”

With a fluttering of his eyelids, Richard seemed to come back to himself. Suddenly he was as good as new. “Oh, hi, Asbel. Did I wake you?”

“No, you… weren’t even making any noise,” Asbel said, getting a glass out of the cupboard and filling it. “What are you doing up? Is it the window?”

“No, just… bad dreams, I guess.”

“Bad dreams?”

Richard drummed his fingers on the table. “Asbel, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Asbel sat down in the chair opposite Richard. “Okay. Shoot.”

“I lied to you. When we first bumped into each other at the fountain, I said I had no idea your father died. That was a lie. I knew.”

“Oh.” Asbel took a drink. “Well… that’s okay.”

“No, you don’t understand. That’s the whole reason I came back here. I was _hoping_ to see you.”

“Me?”

“I swear it wasn’t a stalker thing,” Richard hurried on. “I really did have no idea you ever moved away. I just heard the news and I thought… ‘I want to see him. I want to go back to Lhant and see Asbel.’ And I thought maybe you might want to see me too.”

“Oh.” Asbel thought he might understand, a little. “I did want to see you, Richard. You didn’t need to lie. And it’s not a big deal that you did.”

Richard nodded, but he still looked wretched. “I know that you and Cheria…”

“Me and Cheria?” Asbel shook his head. “That’s… complicated. And it’s got nothing to do with you and me.” He reached across the table and took Richard’s hand.

Richard looked up, a little surprised but not unhappy. “I missed you, Asbel. I… I don’t think I ever told you this, but you are the dearest friend I ever had.”

“I’m still trying to figure some stuff out,” Asbel said. “I have a lot of things to make up to a lot of people, and I’m really not even sure of my place in Lhant. But I do know, from these last few days, that I want you in it, as much as you want to be. It’s obvious Sophie loves you, and I… you’re very dear to me too.”

“Thank you, Asbel. I’m really glad we had this talk.”

“Me too.” He stood up, holding his glass. “I’m gonna try to go back to sleep. After all, I’m gonna go to… the library tomorrow. Or later today, I guess.”

Richard grinned. “To read would be an awfully big adventure. Good night, Asbel. I think I, too, shall re-retire.”

“Re-good night, Richard.”


	7. Chapter 7

Both of them were tired the next morning but determined to get to the bottom of things—or at least, whatever bottom was to be found at the library. There was another storm rolling in, this one much bigger, so it seemed like a good idea to take care of it while they could. Sophie wanted to go with them, and while she was certainly old enough to no longer require a baby-sitter, Asbel was reluctant to leave her at home alone until they had a better handle on things, but at the same time, he was hesitant to include her in this. Richard suggested asking Cheria to come over, so Asbel ponied up and called her. Of course, she was more than happy to spend some more time with Sophie.

At the library, Richard began looking through microfiche while Asbel enlisted the librarian in helping him find old property records. He had no idea what he was looking for in them, though, and pretty soon he was mostly just sitting at the table near Richard, absently leafing through the pages.

“Oh hey guys!” Pascal bounced to a stop in front of Richard’s console. “What’s up?”

“Shh!” the librarian hissed.

“Hey, Pascal,” Asbel said. “Here to do some research?”

“Psh, nah. They’re having trouble with one of their generators and so the sheriff asked me if I’d come take a look.”

“Oh, cool,” said Asbel.

“Say, do you guys like banana pie?”

“Uh… it’s all right, I guess? Why?”

Pascal shrugged. “Just wondering. You know that bakery over there makes really good ones.”

“Yeah, I know the owner.”

Pascal’s eyes lit up. “For real?”

“For real.”

She clasped her hands. “Please introduce me so I can thank them for all the joy they have brought into my life!”

“Uh, okay. I’ll check into it.”

The librarian came over looking like he was going to forcibly eject Pascal from the building, then he realized who she was and quickly showed her downstairs to the generator.

“Hey, Richard, do you think Pascal is actually, like… _smart_?”

“Well, she did say she was a mechanical engineer,” Richard said.

“Yeah but what does a mechanical engineer _do_?”

Richard paused in his search through the microfiche, gazing off into the distance in thought. “I’m not really sure. I’ve never written one before. Something with generators?”

Asbel pulled out his phone and tried to look it up but the Wikipedia article didn’t really clear anything up. He gave up and went back to half-heartedly skimming the records.

“Hey, I think I found something,” Richard said suddenly. “Come look at this.”

Asbel rested his hands on the back of Richard’s chair as he read the article on the screen. It was about a house fire that killed a young boy.

“It doesn’t give an address,” Asbel said. “But I guess I can look and—”

“No, Asbel. Look.” Richard had gone white. He pointed a shaky finger at the grainy black and white photo of the boy who’d died. “This boy. I’ve seen him before.”

“Richard, are you okay?”

“I’ve been having nightmares. About being trapped in a burning house. Once I woke up and—I thought I was still dreaming, but I saw him. He was there. I saw this face.”

“You’re kidding, right? That… can’t be right…”

Richard turned in the chair to look up at Asbel. “The broken window. He doesn’t want the window closed. It’s blocking his escape. That’s how he died. He couldn’t get the window open.”

Asbel grabbed the records and went back to around the same period as when the article was written. The names matched. He showed it to Richard wordlessly.

“I think we have found our ghost,” Richard said.

Asbel felt chills. Suddenly he wanted only to be with Sophie.

Outside the clouds had rolled back in. The storm was definitely almost upon Lhant. They blew in occasionally at this time of year, so it was nothing unusual, but the sky had gotten pretty black pretty quickly, and that worried him a little. The hardware store was busy with people grabbing boards and sandbags last minute, but Asbel already had anything he might need at home.

He did want to stop by the bakery first and check on Frederic, though. If Cheria couldn’t make it back to town before the storm hit she’d worry incessantly—

That was the first time he realized Cheria might be stuck at his house for the duration of the storm. He didn’t know if the thought made him happy or anxious.

He made sure Frederic closed up the shop and then gave him a ride home. He tried to convince Frederic to come with him, but Frederic insisted he had seen many more storms than Asbel and had always been just fine. Finally Asbel had to relent in the face of that iron will and he and Richard set out alone.

It started to rain before they got very far out of town. It was light and they would make it before the road got too muddy, but it was still pretty good timing.

Richard pointed. “Hey, isn’t that…?”

Asbel pulled to the side of the road and rolled down his window. “Pascal?”

She looked up. “Oh hey guys! Gettin’ kinda cold out, huh?”

“Why are you walking in the rain?”

“Going home,” she said, as if that were obvious.

“Well yeah, but—”

Richard put a hand on his arm to stop him. Asbel knew what he meant: trying to get sense out of her was pointless.

Asbel cleared his throat and tried a different tack. “Want a ride?”

“From you? Lil’ ol’ me? Don’t mind if I do!” She threw open the back door and climbed in. “Onward, captain!”

Pascal and Richard sang along with the radio the whole way. Asbel was half-expecting them to decide to start a band by the time they got home. He didn’t say so, though, because if they hadn’t thought of it, he wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it.

“Thanks for the lift, guys,” Pascal said, hopping out.

“Wait,” said Asbel. “You’re going to be all alone?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve got this engine I’m working on, does that count?”

“Not… as such. Why don’t you come hang out with us?”

Pascal looked like someone had just offered her twenty banana pies. “You mean it?”

“Yeah. Come on.”

“You would worry, wouldn’t you,” Richard said in a low voice as Pascal climbed back in.

“Wouldn’t _you_?” Asbel asked. True, Asbel had the tendency to worry about people—he would have insisted his mother come over if he didn’t know the staff had things well in hand—but Pascal also just kind of seemed like the sort of person who needed to be chaperoned.

Richard thought about it, then nodded in agreement.

They were surprised to find Malik’s cruiser parked out front when they reached Asbel’s house. It had begun to rain in earnest, but the windows were already boarded up and the inside of the house was dry and safe, if stuffy and a little uncomfortably warm. They found Sophie and Malik setting up fans around the house. Sounds coming from the kitchen suggested Cheria’s whereabouts.

“Heya, Sheriff! What are you doing here?” Pascal asked while Sophie took the opportunity presented by the momentary distraction to make a break for it.

“I wanted to stop by to tell you some things about that break-in, but when I saw you weren’t here I offered to help Cheria with the windows, and then she insisted I stay for lunch. Say, you guys are pretty wet.”

“Yeah, because it’s started raining,” Asbel said. “You better stay here. You won’t make it back to town before—”

Somewhere overheard thunder rumbled.

“That.”

Malik looked like he wanted to protest but relented before he got any words out. “I can’t very well expect people to listen to my instructions about not going out in the storm if they see me out in it, can I.”

Pascal clapped. “It really is going to be a party!”

“What news did you have about the break-in?” Asbel asked.

“Well, mostly that we couldn’t find any evidence of one,” Malik said. “There was nothing to indicate forced entry. The fingerprints we lifted could all be accounted for. Nothing was stolen, right?”

Asbel shook his head no.

“I don’t know what to say, Asbel. There’s only so much we can do with our resources.”

Asbel sighed. “I understand, Sheriff. Thanks for your hard work.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Pie’s ready,” Cheria announced, bringing one out from the kitchen.

“Pie?” Pascal said, on Cheria in an eye blink.

“Oh, Asbel, Richard, you’re back! And… you brought a friend!” To her credit, Cheria did try to look happy.

“Yes,” Asbel said. “Cheria, this is—”

“Hi! I’m Pascal. I live next door. What kind of pie is that?” Pascal stuck out a finger.

Cheria moved the pie out of her reach. “Apple…?” She glanced at Asbel, who shrugged.

“Hmm…” Pascal examined the pie carefully from a short distance. “I’ll take it.”

“Actually it’s for—”

Sophie stuck her head around the corner. “I smell pie.”

“Everyone,” Cheria finished. “Yes, Sophie, it’s ready. Come on, everyone. Asbel, is it all right if we have it with the ice cream in the freezer?”

“Yeah. If the power goes out we might have to eat all that stuff anyway,” Asbel said.

“Ooh!” Pascal looked like she was born for that job.

Asbel wanted to tell Cheria about what they’d discovered at the library—maybe even Malik and Pascal could offer their perspectives on it—but talking about the violent death of a young boy seemed like a poor topic of conversation to go with pie, and he definitely didn’t want to discuss it with Sophie there. He remained silent, trying to sort out how he felt about the whole thing while the others chatted. He wanted coffee, and he figured he might not be the only one, so he got up and put on a pot.

“So, Richard,” Malik said. “Any progress with that novel?”

“I’ve got some good ideas sketched out,” Richard said. “I’m finding this place very inspiring.” He briefly made eye contact with Asbel before looking away.

Suddenly Malik’s phone went off. He glanced at it and said, “Uh-oh.”

That got everybody’s attention.

“Sorry, I gotta take this. Just one second.” He got to his feet and answered. “H—”

He held the phone away from his head, wincing. Finally, he brought it closer and said, “Y—yes. I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow. ’Bye.” He hung up quickly and sat back down. “So. Anybody see the game last night?”

“What was that all about?” Cheria asked.

“Let me guess.” Richard put a hand to his forehead as if in deep concentration. “Victoria?”

“Your deputy?” Cheria raised an eyebrow.

Malik nodded, chagrined. “She’s… not thrilled I didn’t head back to town before the storm hit. She has a lot to deal with now and I can’t exactly help.”

Cheria gave him a wry look. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s a lovely blouse, by the way. Did you see Richard’s scarf also?”

“This pie is frickin’ amazing!” Pascal burst out, inadvertently saving him. “Cheria, you’re a magician!”

“Cheria’s grandfather is the one who owns the bakery,” Asbel said, pouring the coffee.

Pascal stood, slamming her hands on the table. “No way!” she cried. “Cheria, marry me!”

Cheria turned bright red. It shouldn’t have been flattering with her hair color, but Asbel found himself thinking it was cute. “Wh—that’s—it’s just pie,” she stammered.

“Just pie, she says!” Pascal sank back down in her chair. “Maybe I’ll just marry the pie.”

“I’m sure you two will be very happy together,” Richard said. “At least until it leaves you.”

Malik almost choked on his coffee.

“Richard!” Cheria said, hitting him with her napkin. “Gross!” She put a hand over her mouth to keep a traitorous giggle from escaping.

“Maybe she could marry your grandfather,” Richard went on. “He’s still single, right?”

“Yes!” Pascal said, snapping her fingers.

“Not if I get there first. I’ve tasted his red velvet cupcakes,” Malik said.

“Nobody is marrying my grandfather,” Cheria said archly. She took a sip of her coffee. “Not without my permission anyway. Sorry, Pascal. I don’t think I can call someone younger than me Grandmother.”

“I’m older than you!” Pascal protested.

“What? No!” Cheria glanced around the table for confirmation.

Malik nodded.

“What kind of flowers does he like?” Pascal asked.

Cheria threw her hands up. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I’ll make you all the pie—and cupcakes,” she added to Malik, “you want as long as you leave my grandfather alone.”

“I don’t know about that. He’ll be pretty difficult to resist,” Malik said. “That silver hair, those little spectacles…”

“Oh my god, can we please stop objectifying my poor grandfather.”

“I’m not sure I can now that I’ve started.”

Sophie tugged on Asbel’s sleeve. “What’s ‘objectifying’?”

“Uhh… it’s hard to explain,” Asbel said. “Richard can later.”

The storm began to roar in earnest, thunder crashing loudly enough that Asbel had to suppress the urge to flinch. Those who had grown up in the area had all experienced worse, but Asbel was a little worried about Sophie.

He caught Cheria’s eye and nodded towards Sophie’s room. It took her a second to catch on to his meaning, but then she nodded. “Hey, Sophie, why don’t you show me your books again? There were some I wanted to ask you about.”

Sophie nodded, then led Cheria back to her room.

“Any particular reason for that, Asbel?” Richard asked.

“It’s hard to tell if she’s scared or not. She always tries to put on a brave face. I just wanted to distract her,” Asbel explained.

“And…?”

“And… I wanted to talk about what we found out at the library.”

“The library?” Malik raised an eyebrow.

“I know this is going to sound strange, Sheriff, but I really do think this place might be haunted.”

Pascal, who looked like she was thinking about following Sophie and Cheria, suddenly zeroed back in on their conversation. “You think so, huh?”

“We found records at the library that indicate a young boy died here in a fire several decades ago,” Richard said.

“But if the house burned down,” Pascal said thoughtfully, “wouldn’t there be nothing left for him to haunt?”

“The _entire_ house didn’t burn, presumably,” said Richard. “And what did was rebuilt.”

Pascal shrugged, bored of this topic. “’Kay. So do you think he’s a _vengeful_ spirit?”

“Well, he does seem to like to break things,” Asbel said ruefully.

Malik stroked his chin in thought. “Ah, yes, now I remember the incident in question.”

“You do?”

“No. How could I possibly? Try to keep up, Asbel. Did you get a name, though? Perhaps I can look into it when I get back to the station.”

“Lambda.”

Everybody looked up to find Sophie standing in the hall, watching them.

“His name is Lambda.”

Malik turned to Asbel for confirmation, but Asbel was focused on Sophie. “How could you possibly know that?”

“He told me so.”


	8. Chapter 8

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Nobody moved to open it.

Cheria appeared in the hall. “Isn’t someone going to get…” She stopped upon seeing their faces. “Did something happen?”

Finally Asbel stood and went to the door, opening it without even checking to see who it was first. He couldn’t have said whom he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t Hubert, and yet that’s exactly who was there. Hubert was soaked from head to toe, looking like an angry kitty forgotten out in the rain.

“Hubert,” Asbel said finally, which maybe wasn’t the best greeting, but it was the one he came up with.

“Hello, brother,” Hubert said, pushing his glasses up his slippery nose. “Am I to be left out here all night or is there room at the inn?”

“Oh, uh, no, yeah, come in.” Asbel stood back and Hubert stepped inside, dripping on the floor.

“Hello, Hubert. Remember me? Cheria? Would you like a towel?” Cheria asked gingerly.

“One would not go amiss,” Hubert said.

“What are you doing here?” Asbel asked while she hurried off to fetch one.

“I was told I needed to, quote, ‘come home.’”

“I didn’t expect you actually would. It’s been ages. And why here rather than Mom’s?”

“If you want me gone, I’ll leave.”

“What? No! That’s not what I meant at all. I’m just surprised and a little confused.”

“So I see your natural state has not changed. To answer your questions, I am here now because that is when I could get away from work. And I am here rather than at the manor because my flight was delayed, thus causing me to reach Lhant along with this storm, and my rental car could not make it any further.”

“Are you my Uncle Hubert?” Sophie asked, leaning around Asbel.

Hubert regarded Sophie as if she were some kind of alien life form. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hubert, this is Sophie. She’s my foster daughter,” Asbel explained.

Hubert seemed torn between confusion and not caring.

For her part, Sophie turned and dashed off. She returned a moment later with Hubert’s boat. She held it out to him reverently. “This is yours. I’ve been keeping it safe for you.”

Hubert was utterly speechless. Slowly, mechanically, he reached out and took it. “Ah… thank you.”

Sophie nodded.

Pascal finally could no longer hold it in and jumped straight into the conversation, sending Sophie running for cover behind Cheria. “Hey Little Bro! Welcome to our storm-slash-ghost party!”

“I am not your—Asbel, who or what is this person?” Hubert spluttered.

“Right, sorry. Introductions. Guys, this is my little brother Hubert. Hubert, this is Pascal, my neighbor, Malik, our sheriff, and… you remember Richard, right?”

Hubert gave Richard an appraising look. “Vaguely.”

“ _I_ remember _you_ ,” Richard said with a mischievous grin. “For example, that time at your Halloween party when Asbel jumped out of the closet at you and you were so scared you—”

“ _I_ do not recall such an incident,” Hubert said, though his desperation to keep Richard from finishing that sentence and the bright red flush that bloomed on his cheeks strongly suggested otherwise.

“I want to hear embarrassing childhood stories about Asbel and Little Bro!” Pascal chirped.

“Absolutely not, and I am not your brother. I don’t even know you!”

“I’m Pascal!”

“Hubert, why don’t I get you some dry clothes?” Asbel offered.

Hubert, eager to be away from the room full of awkward, nodded once.

“So were you gonna let Mom know you got stranded here for now?” Asbel asked as he led Hubert back to his room.

“Mother doesn’t exactly know I’m coming at all.”

Asbel stopped. “What? Are you kidding me? You didn’t even call her? Like, at all?”

“I’m not here to be lectured by you.” Hubert crossed his arms over his chest defensively.

Asbel held up his hands, a gesture of surrender. “I just don’t get it.”

“And how many times did you call her in the last ten years? At least I kept in touch when I wasn’t busy.”

“I don’t want to have this fight with you, Hubert. We haven’t seen each other in so long.”

“You started it!” Hubert faltered, probably realizing how horribly childish he sounded.

“Whatever. Let’s just find you some clothes.”

Asbel may not have had the strongest sartorial sense, but he could tell Hubert’s suit was very nice. He hoped that it wasn’t ruined by the rain. “Should I, uh. Toss this in the dryer?”

Hubert gave him an impressively dirty look that spoke much more loudly than any “no” possibly could have.

“Okey doke. I’ll hang it in the bathroom then.”

“Please, no wire hangers.”

Asbel had been planning on just throwing it over the shower curtain rod, but that seemed to be out. “Uh. Sure. Is plastic okay?”

“Do you not have any wooden ones?”

This time it was Asbel’s turn to respond with only a look.

Hubert sighed, beleaguered. “Very well. We all must make do sometimes.”

Somehow Hubert managed to appear ten times more uncomfortable in sweat shorts than he had sweltering in a wet three-piece suit. It was a pretty interesting trick. He settled himself, boat in hand, into the armchair furthest from where the others were gathered around the coffee table and prepared to be a sullen loner.

Cheria was having none of it. “Hubert, do you want some coffee? If there’s none left I’m sure Asbel won’t mind putting on another pot.”

“I prefer tea.”

“I have tea,” Asbel said, feeling a little smug.

“Green?”

“Uh. I dunno. There’s a picture of a green leaf on the bottle?”

Hubert took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll have water, thank you.”

“It’s too bad you didn’t get here a little sooner, Little Bro. You missed the pie!” Pascal said.

“Wasn’t there a piece or two left?” Cheria asked.

“Nope!”

“I see.” Now it was Cheria’s turn to suppress a murderous impulse.

“Maybe we could make some more. Or cupcakes,” Sophie suggested.

“Ooh!” said Pascal and Malik.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat so much junk food in one day,” Cheria said.

“Junk!” said Pascal and Malik.

“Yes, junk. If you really are _still_ hungry we can see if Asbel has any fruit or something like that.”

“Dibs on Asbel’s bananas!” Pascal declared, hurrying to the kitchen.

Nobody else followed her for a long moment, trying to determine if she was aware of what she’d just said. Except for Sophie, who only wasn’t following because she didn’t want to be alone with Pascal.

Eventually everyone else decided they were hungry too, though, filtering into the kitchen to see what there was to be had. Asbel pictured locusts, imagining he would go in there later to find nothing but bare cupboards and a few small animal bones.

He realized he and Hubert were the only ones left in the living room. He cleared his throat and said, “So. It’s been a long time.”

“Oh, has it?”

“Come on, Hubert. You don’t have to be like this.”

Hubert sighed and adjusted his glasses. “I apologize. I suppose I have been unnecessarily curt. In my defense, I have been traveling all day and I was not expecting a party when I arrived.”

Asbel wanted to point out that if he’d called and told someone he was coming, maybe they could have made better arrangements, but he figured that would just get Hubert all riled up again. “Isn’t it good seeing Cheria and Richard again though? And Sophie’s been dying to meet you. She treated that boat like a little wounded animal.”

Hubert looked at the boat in his lap. “I had forgotten all about it.”

“Just because you forget things doesn’t mean they aren’t meaningful.”

Hubert furrowed his brow. “Anyway, how did you end up with a child?”

“She needed a home. I had one,” Asbel said. “I guess we were both kind of in need of a family.”

Hubert fiddled absently with the sails of his boat. “I can’t say I don’t sympathize with that feeling.”

Cheria and Sophie returned from the kitchen, which concerned Asbel because it meant Malik and Pascal were in there with only Richard as supervision. If Cheria thought it was safe it might be okay though.

“So, Hubert,” Cheria said, kneeling beside the coffee table close to his chair. “What have you been up to? Where do you work? Any special someone in your life?”

“I work with the Paradine Group, in acquisitions. That’s also what I’ve been ‘up to.’ And I’m sure I have no idea what you mean by ‘special someone.’”

Cheria nudged his shin with her elbow. “ _You_ know. Somebody you’ve been seeing. Like on dates? Romantically?”

“Oh. No. I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”

Cheria deflated a little. “There’s no one at all you’ve even _considered_?”

Hubert adjusted his glasses. “The president of the company has made increasingly transparent overtures to me about the possibility of me seeing his daughter in that capacity.”

“What’s she like? Is she pretty? Smart?”

“I’ve met her in passing once or twice. She’s an acceptable woman. But like I said, I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”

“Oh, Hubert. You haven’t changed a bit,” Cheria said with a sigh.

“Nor have you, I see, or at least not your penchant for inappropriately short skirts.”

Cheria snapped her knees, barely parted, together and looked like she was about to give Hubert a piece of her mind. However, Malik, who had just returned from the kitchen, spoke before she could. “That sounds like a personal problem, Hubert.”

“I’m sure I never,” Hubert said, with what was almost an injured sniff.

“I’m quite fond of them, myself,” said Malik. “So freeing, and they really show off my thighs.”

“Tell me more about when you were kids,” Sophie said suddenly.

Hubert looked like he wanted nothing in the world less than that, but this time he remained silent.

“Well, Asbel was much less responsible than he seems these days,” Cheria said pointedly. “He was always jumping headfirst into some silly thing or other, and of course he had no problems dragging along anyone unfortunate enough to get too close—me, Hubert, Richard, the other kids at school. I never got into trouble unless it was related to Asbel.”

Hubert nodded knowingly.

“But he was always kind, and cared about helping others.”

“Which was what got him into trouble most of the time,” Hubert added helpfully. “Being a fool.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t think it was brave the way he would stand up to bullies for kids who couldn’t?”

“I don’t know about brave, but it was certainly foolish.”

“I think it was brave,” Sophie said decisively.

“Thank you,” said Asbel, touched in spite of how much he would rather this not be the topic of conversation.

Richard ushered Pascal back out of the kitchen. “Come now, best save a _little_ for everyone else.”

 _Locusts_ , thought Asbel grimly.

“We were sharing childhood stories for Sophie,” Cheria explained.

“Actually I think we’ve had quite enough of that,” Hubert said firmly.

“Hubert, did you by any chance remember the story of this house?” Richard asked.

“What? No. What story?” Hubert eyed Richard warily, but in fairness, Richard did look a little uncomfortably like a shark who smelled blood in the water.

“You don’t remember? How they say that it’s haunted?”

“Oh, please,” Hubert scoffed. “Don’t tell me all of you believe in ghosts still. You’re grown adults, for heaven’s sake.”

“I don’t know, Hubert. Some pretty weird crap’s been going on,” Malik said authoritatively.

“There is no empirical evidence for the existence of—”

Suddenly the lights went out.

“It’s a thunderstorm!” Hubert said after a long silence. “That is not ghosts!”

“Well, he’s not wrong about that,” Asbel said. “Richard, have you—”

“On it.” A light bloomed in front of him as Richard set a match to a candle, the source of which Asbel wasn’t even going to try to guess at.

“Sophie, before, you said you knew his name was Lambda,” Asbel said, deciding they were going to have to talk about this eventually. “You said he told you. What did you mean?”

Sophie cast her eyes down at the candle. “He talked to me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I thought you knew. I’ve been having bad dreams. One night I woke up and I walked down the hall to Richard’s room. I don’t know why. He was standing by the window and he turned around and I realized he wasn’t Richard at all.”

Everyone was staring at Richard, who was staring at Sophie. “I don’t remember that.”

Sophie shook her head. “It wasn’t you. It was Lambda.”

“What did he say?” Pascal asked in a hushed voice, which was almost more startling than if she’d yelled like normal. Almost.

“He said I reminded him of someone he once knew,” Sophie said. “I asked him if that was a good thing or a bad thing, and he said he didn’t know. I said he should stop causing problems but he said we were the ones causing problems. I told him to leave Richard alone, and then Richard got back into bed and went to sleep. I thought Richard would remember that it happened but he didn’t, and I realized it was because he was Lambda at the time.”

Richard put a shaky hand to his head. “I… did that really happen? I didn’t know…”

Asbel reached out and put a hand on his knee while Cheria took his hand gently in hers. “Hey. You’re fine now, right?” Asbel said.

“Yeah. Besides, it’s just a little possession. They’ve got cures for that nowadays, right?” Pascal said.

“Pascal,” Malik said warningly.

“I was looking on the bright side!”

“If you’ll all excuse me for a minute,” Richard said, unwinding his scarf and stepping away from the group.

“Should we go after him?” Cheria asked nervously.

“I… I _want_ to,” Asbel admitted, “but I kinda think we shouldn’t.”

Cheria seemed to agree, but only with great reluctance.

There was a long, tense silence filled only by rain and thunder outside. Finally Pascal jumped up. “Let’s play a game!”

“That’s actually a good idea,” Cheria said. “Sophie, any preferences?”

Sophie shook her head.

“Well. Asbel, where do you keep them? Pascal and I will go see what’s available.”

They trotted off to go look, Pascal for some reason asking Cheria if she knew anything about water heaters. Cheria did not.

They had just gotten started on a round of Uzmek the Gigantoid: The Board Game when there was a loud crash from down the hall. Everyone was about to go see what happened when Richard appeared from his room, looking much more cheerful. “Sorry about that, friends. It was just a bit of a shock. I’m fine now, really.”

Cheria gasped. “Richard! Your hand!”

Richard’s knuckles were raw and bloody, but when he looked down, he seemed unfazed. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

“I’ll go get the first aid kit!” Cheria said, running for the bathroom.

Asbel tried to take Richard’s hand to get a closer look, but Richard flinched away. Asbel looked up, meeting his eyes. “Richard… is the plywood covering the window in your room busted?”

“Why should it be? Come on, everyone. Ooh, Uzmek. I love those books. Weren’t you a fan, too, Hubert?”

It was unnerving how calm he seemed. Asbel could almost have pretended it was the same old Richard, except that it clearly wasn’t. His posture, his movements, his _eyes_ …

Cheria came back with the first aid kit, but Richard stepped away, tensing up. His lip curled uncharacteristically, and Cheria couldn’t help but flinch at the sight of his bared teeth.

“Richard, snap out of it!” Asbel grabbed Richard’s arm, and suddenly the whole house was on fire.

Richard had vanished. Asbel was standing in the living room alone, surrounded by flames. He heard someone shouting for help down the hall, so without thinking, he ran towards it.

There was someone in Richard’s room. Asbel realized with a start that it looked like a child. They were sobbing and yelling for help, frantically trying get the window open somehow, but with no luck. Asbel wanted to help, but the fire separating them had grown too high. In fact, where he stood in the hall was no longer safe. In fact, his foot was on fire.

Belatedly, Asbel jumped, expecting to land in the flames behind him, but he felt nothing. The fire wasn’t real. Nothing was. Or everything was except him.

He stepped through the flames into Richard’s room and walked to the child. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

The child didn’t react. Asbel was not surprised when he peered at the child’s face and saw a resemblance to the grainy newspaper photograph. It was Lambda.

“So this is… a memory?” He looked around the room, the same one Richard was sleeping in now. The same but not the same. It was disturbing. He was witnessing the last moments of a child’s life, and he could do nothing about it.

“Richard!” he yelled.

Suddenly he was back in the present day, his arm still on Richard’s shoulder. The two locked eyes, and Asbel knew it was over. “Richard?”

Richard blinked. “Asbel. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It was Lambda,” Sophie said. “You were Lambda, but you were still also you, a little.”

“This is so cool!” Pascal shrieked.

Malik shot her a look.

“And terrible,” she added quickly. “Cool and terrible. Are you all right, guys? You should let Cheria bandage your hand, Richard.”

Richard looked down at his injured hand, registering it slowly. “Yes, I… I would appreciate that very much, Cheria. Thank you. And… I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Richard. What are friends for?” Cheria smiled at him.

Asbel decided to leave them to it for a moment. He needed to step away briefly himself. He made his way to the bathroom, where he splashed some cold water on his face.

Hubert followed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning slightly to rest against the doorframe. “And just what was that little display all about?”

“I know you say you don’t believe in ghosts,” Asbel said, toweling off his face.

“Because they don’t exist.”

“But that was some seriously real crap right there. I saw it. I had an actual vision of the boy who died in this house.”

“This ‘Lamdba’?”

“Don’t air quote me, Hubert. Lambda was a real person. We found records of him. And he really died here.”

“I’m only asking for your _daughter_ ’s sake. You have a child around these people? Richard is clearly unhinged, and does that Pascal woman even _bathe_?”

Asbel was normally a very patient person, but it was starting to wear thin. “Just stop, Hubert. You’re always suspicious of people, because you’re afraid. That’s fine for you I guess, but don’t judge me for not being the same way.”

Hubert was speechless.

Asbel shouldered past him and was halfway down the hall when the lights came back on.

“Hooray!” Pascal cheered.

“That means you don’t get to raid the fridge,” Malik pointed out.

“Shoot.”

“Anymore than you already have, anyway,” Cheria said.

Cheria was slowly wrapping a bandage around Richard’s injured hand. Sophie was squatting by them, watching intently.

Richard smiled wanly at her. “Only plain white? Doesn’t Asbel have something with a bit more flair?”

“I’m not entirely sure Asbel knows what flair means,” Cheria said.

“We could draw on it,” Sophie suggested. “Like with a cast. Cheria’s really good at drawing.”

“Ooh ooh ooh! Pick me, pick me!” Pascal scooted over, digging a Sharpie out of her tool belt.

“Be careful, it’s still tender,” Cheria said, reluctant to hand something so fragile over to a wrecking ball.

“I got this!” Pascal said, though Richard’s winces suggested otherwise. She concentrated fiercely, tongue stuck between her teeth, for a long moment before finally throwing her arms in the air with a triumphant, “Ta-da!”

On his hand was an unmistakable little cartoon Sophie. Asbel was honestly surprised—for some reason he was kind of expecting kindergarten scribbles, but this was genuinely good.

“Wow, Pascal, it’s great! You’re really talented!” Cheria said.

“It’s wonderful, Pascal. Thank you. I’ll treasure it.” Richard held his hand close to his heart, probably as much to show his gratitude as to keep it away from Pascal.

Asbel cleared his throat. “I hate to ask this, Richard, but what did you hurt your hand on? The plywood, right?”

Richard’s sheepish expression told Asbel all he needed to know. “I can’t apologize enough. I feel so foolish.”

“It’s not your fault, Richard.” Asbel didn’t actually know whether or not that was completely true, but he did know he didn’t blame Richard at all. He was still feeling rattled by the whole thing, and more than a little frustrated. It stung that he couldn’t keep his family safe in his own home.

There was indeed a hole in the plywood nailed to Richard’s window. Outside, the wind was still fierce, howling like more ghosts than could fit in Asbel’s entire house. He wasn’t too keen to go back out into it, and that was on top of the fact that he wasn’t even sure there were anymore boards left.

“You could tack up a towel, perhaps,” Hubert suggested from the doorway.

“I guess I’ll have to.” He sighed. “Poor Richard.”

“‘Poor Richard’?” Hubert repeated.

Asbel was too worn out to fight. He gave Hubert a warning look.

Hubert adjusted his glasses. “My apologies. Perhaps it’s not my place to speak, in spite of any veracity.”

“Hubert, that’s not it. Richard obviously needs help and you don’t even _know_ Pascal. I bet you two would get along really well if you actually got to know each other! She’s a mechanical engineer.”

“And what, pray tell, does that have to do with us getting along?”

“She’s… smart? You’re smart?”

Hubert gave him his patented “do you even hear yourself talk sometimes” look and moved on. “Fine. I can’t pretend it’s exactly a shock to see this aspect of your personality has not changed. You are an adult now, and entitled to make your own choices.”

“Even when they’re wrong?”

Hubert smirked, just a little. “Your words, dear brother, not mine.”

Hubert helped him tack a towel over the opening in the plywood. Back in the living room, Richard was smiling a little and talking with the others and seemed to be his old self, if subdued and a little strained.

“No, okay, listen, there’s gonna be a doohickey here, and it’s gonna go fwoom like this, feeding down into the thingamabobber here, and then kapowie!” Pascal said, gesturing broadly.

“I’m still not sure I understand, but it sounds very cool,” Cheria said politely.

“No, _hot_. It’s a water heater! Come on, Cheria, you’re killin’ me!”

“Hey, since the power’s back on, you guys want some more coffee?” Asbel said.

“It’s a hundred degrees in here and you want to serve us more _hot_ drinks?” Malik said.

“Oh, uh. I guess…”

“He still can’t tell when you’re having a go at him, Sheriff,” Richard said conspiratorially. It made Asbel feel a little better, though him being the butt of the joke was not preferable.

“He’s not wrong, though,” Cheria said, fanning herself.

Asbel thought. “We have… Sophie, do we still have that lemonade?”

Sophie nodded, then ran off to the kitchen.

“Let me guess: from concentrate,” said Hubert.

“Sophie likes to make it,” Asbel said defensively.

“Lemons and a juicer, Asbel,” Malik said.

It was difficult to keep track of time, but gradually it became apparent that the storm was not going to pass before it got late, and even if it did, the roads would not be drivable.

“Slumber party at Asbel’s! Woohoo!” Pascal said, doing a little jig. “Would telling ghost stories tonight be redundant?”

“How are the sleeping arrangements to work?” Hubert asked, edging away from her.

“Well, you can bunk with me,” Asbel said. “There’s enough room.”

“I don’t mind the sofa,” said Malik.

Asbel eyed his couch. Would Malik even fit?

“Or the floor,” Malik added judiciously.

“We can sleep on the floor in Sophie’s room,” Cheria said, motioning to herself and Pascal. “If Sophie doesn’t mind.”

Sophie hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t mind.”

“I’m to be alone, then?” Richard said. He’d meant it as a joke, but the silence afterwards deflated the humor from it.

“It’s okay, Richard. If you get lonely, you can come hang out with me and we can braid each other’s hair and gossip about everyone else,” Malik said.

“So our usual evening.”

“Precisely.”

It took some time to get everyone settled, handing out blankets and pillows and trying to get comfortable. Asbel had one sleeping bag, which he’d bought once in an attempt to reassert his spirit of adventure in the face of a corporate desk job, and of course he’d never used it. That he gave to Cheria and Pascal to share. He also loaned Cheria one of his shirts to sleep in, each of them far too aware of how much they were blushing when he handed it to her.

“I bet you could fit into Sophie’s clothes,” Richard said to Pascal.

“Probably. I’ll just sleep in my own clothes though,” Pascal said, unconcerned.

“What about you, Sheriff?” Asbel asked. “Do you mind doing the same?”

“I don’t mind, but I’m not sure how Pascal would feel about me sleeping in her clothes,” Malik said.

There were audible groans.

Eventually the chaos began to die down. One by one everyone drifted off to sleep until finally only Asbel was left awake.

Asleep, Hubert appeared ten years younger. His face was no longer creased by lines of stress and frustration. He looked closer to the boy Asbel had once known and scared into peeing his pants.

Asbel tiptoed down the hall to peer in at Sophie. All three occupants of her room were out. He watched Sophie for a long moment, waiting for the telltale rise and fall of her chest that signified she was still breathing. He used to do this nightly, but it was a habit he’d mostly broken himself of. Tonight he felt little shame in indulging it.

In the sleeping bag on the floor, Pascal was in a free-fall position, limbs akimbo and half flung across Cheria, who was too deeply asleep herself to notice or care.

Asbel quickly moved on to check his other tenants.

Malik was asleep in a pile of blankets on the living room floor. It didn’t look terribly comfortable to Asbel, but it seemed to be doing the trick for his guest, who was snoring lightly and steadily.

In the guest bedroom, Richard’s bed was unmade but empty. _Probably just in the bathroom_ , Asbel assured himself, turning away.

Richard was standing behind him, giving new meaning to the phrase “silent as the grave.”

Asbel nearly jumped out of his skin. Privately he was quite pleased and impressed that he did not actually yell out loud. “I didn’t hear you,” he whispered. “Is the towel in the window okay? We can find somewhere else for you to sleep if it’s bothering you.”

Richard didn’t move or speak or give any sign that he’d heard Asbel, though he was looking right at him.

“Richard…?”

Suddenly, with a sharp hiss, Richard lunged at him.


	9. Chapter 9

Asbel sat bolt upright in bed. Sunlight was filtering in through the blinds. It was morning; the storm had passed.

He held a hand to his chest as if trying to keep his pounding heart from falling out of his ribcage. A dream? Was that all that was?

Everybody else, as usual, was already up and dressed. “Hello, Asbel,” Richard said, passing by him with a carafe of orange juice. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

Asbel studied Richard’s face. It was perfectly normal, not the waxy ghost he’d been last night—in the dream, or whatever. “Yeah,” said Asbel. “Good morning.”

He was ready to dismiss the whole incident when he bumped into the table and it drove a sharp pain through his abdomen. He looked and found, to his great surprise, a large bruise there he couldn’t explain.

One by one everyone left, thanking Asbel for his hospitality (Pascal only when prompted by a sharp jab to the ribs from Malik). Cheria seemed like she wanted to stay, but she was also eager to check on her grandfather and the house.

“I should get to Mother’s,” Hubert said.

“Why don’t I drive you?” Asbel suggested.

Hubert hedged, but Sophie said eagerly, “I want to go with you and Uncle Hubert to see Grandma.”

Hubert still looked at Sophie as if he didn’t know quite what to make of her, especially when she called him “Uncle.” The word “Grandma” made his eyes widen noticeably. Instead of remarking on it, though, he cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up. “Very well. I must get another suit out of my luggage, though, as the one I came in is no doubt still wet and, I’m sure, in no condition to be worn.”

“You wouldn’t let me throw it in the dryer.”

“That’s because it would have ruined it, you imbecile!”

“Whatever. We’re going to stop in town and _both_ of us are going to get Mom flowers,” Asbel said firmly.

Hubert kind of looked like he wanted to tell Asbel that Asbel was not the boss of him, but instead he said again, “Very well.”

“I wish more of the garden was in bloom. Can I bring her some of the flowers that are?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, of course.” Asbel scratched his head. “You guys can all get ready while I call the staff and tell them we’re coming. I don’t want to surprise _them_.”

Hubert looked relieved to get a clean suit on. It was still a bit windy and terribly muddy out, but with careful steps and use of parking, he could get there in three pieces.

Asbel turned to Richard, who held up his hands before Asbel could even speak. “I don’t want to intrude on a family gathering.”

“That’s not what it would be at all. And I’m not just saying that. You’re more than welcome.”

“It’s fine,” Richard said firmly, and it really seemed to be. “I need to work on my novel anyway. My editor is really excited by what I’ve told her about it so far.”

“You sure you’re going to be okay here with… you know?”

“Yes,” Richard said so quickly he must have been prepared for the question. “Go on. Don’t worry about me. If I make any more messes, I shall clean them myself.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Asbel laid his hand on Richard’s arm. He received no visions this time. “Take care, okay? We’ll be back soon. Ah… dinner…”

“I believe Pascal may have left a crust of bread and some water.”

“I’ll stop at the store on our way back. She’s so tiny! Where does it all go?”

“I have two theories,” Richard said, tapping his chin. “One, all her talking and jumping around burns all the calories right off. Two, she is host to some sort of intestinal parasite.”

“If she was, I bet she’d keep it as a pet. Or a friend. Okay, if you’re absolutely sure about staying. I’m gonna call the house and then get ready. If you change your mind, let me know?”

Richard nodded, then retreated to his room.

He did not change his mind, even when Sophie asked, so reluctantly the others bid him farewell and left.

“I’m worried about Richard,” Sophie said quietly. “Maybe I should have stayed with him.”

“Me too, Sophie. But I’m sure he’ll be okay.” Privately, Asbel was a little less sure that was true, but he resolved to do whatever he could to _make_ it true.

He was a bit afraid Hubert’s little rental car would breeze right through town but it stopped along with Asbel’s SUV at the flower shop, where the brothers both went inside to pick out bouquets for their mother.

“We’ll have to come back here later to get some more for Dad,” Asbel said.

Hubert didn’t respond, merely continued to study the flowers in front of him as if they were financial records that didn’t quite balance.

“These are pretty,” Sophie said. “And these. And these! I want to plant some of them. All of them. I want to plant all of them.”

So they picked up some seeds as well, Asbel only briefly entertaining the mental image of his entire house winding up covered in overgrown, predatory blossoms. He would definitely have to put a stop to it before that happened. Sophie would cover the world in flowers if she could.

When the maid answered the door at the manor, Asbel held a finger to his lips indicating quiet. She nodded and grinned, carefully shutting the door behind Hubert, who was using his free hand to fuss with his appearance last-minute.

Kerri was in the parlor, having tea while she looked over some papers. Asbel knocked on the open door to get her attention. “Surprise, Mom!”

She looked up, a grin lighting up her face. “Asbel! Sophie! Isn’t this nice! And…”

Hubert cleared his throat, adjusted his tie and his glasses for the umpteenth time. “Hello, Mother. It’s good to see you.”

Kerri’s expression was indescribable, an overwhelming mix of surprise, confusion, joy, and a hundred other emotions all at once. She slowly got to her feet, then quickly closed the distance between them to hug Hubert with all her might. Hubert looked startled at first, but he soon let his eyes flutter shut as he hugged her back. With one hand, Kerri motioned for Asbel and Sophie to join in, and quickly all four surviving Lhants were enmeshed in a tight embrace.

Once the tearful greetings were dispensed with, the questions began. Kerri interrogated Hubert at length about his life, and Hubert told her all about mergers and acquisitions. Asbel did not follow this part of the conversation at all, but Kerri seemed to know exactly what Hubert was saying. She nodded along and asked questions Asbel didn’t understand either. Sophie tugged his sleeve at one point, but he just told her, “I have absolutely no idea.”

“What about you, Mother?” Hubert asked once it was firmly established that no, he was not “seeing” anyone, and no, he, unlike her firstborn, had no surprise grandchildren for her. “What sort of pursuits have you been… er… pursuing?”

“Actually, that’s something I was going to talk to Asbel about, but this is even better,” Kerri said. “Asbel, remember how much fun we had decorating your house?”

Asbel and Sophie nodded in unison.

“It made me think that I was actually pretty good at it. So I thought, why not do this for real? So! I’ve decided to sign up for some courses in interior design at the community college in Gralesyde!”

“That’s great, Mom!” Asbel said, genuinely surprised. “You obviously have a natural talent for it. I think this is an awesome idea.”

“Yes, it does well to remain active,” Hubert said. “Everybody needs a project.”

Kerri was thrilled by their reactions. “I think depending on how things go I may even start my own business one day. It’s been very depressing puttering around here alone since your father passed, and you boys are grown…”

“Mom. This is wonderful,” Asbel said. “You’re gonna do great.”

“What about you, Asbel?” Kerri asked. “Now that you’re here, what kind of work are you thinking about?”

Asbel scratched his head, hedging. He’d been so wrapped up in the whole Lambda thing he really hadn’t given his future career much consideration. Almost none at all, to be honest. “I don’t know. I suppose I could see if I could get a job in Gralesyde similar to my old one, but…” But that didn’t sound particularly appealing.

“Why don’t you try to find something at the sheriff’s station? Oh, you’d be perfect for that!”

“Asbel, with a firearm? Perish the thought,” Hubert said.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Asbel said.

“Can you imagine him on a call? His response to an armed robbery would involve a flying tackle.”

“I’m sitting right here, you know.”

“It doesn’t have to be as an officer,” Kerri said. “Maybe they have a desk job available. It’s really just Malik and Victoria, you know.”

“Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask,” Asbel said. Privately, he wasn’t too keen on another desk job, but then, he didn’t really know what else he was suited for.

“If nothing else, I know for certain Frederic will always welcome you at the bakery,” Kerri added.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Asbel admitted. “I do know my way around a kitchen. Thanks, Mom. I’ll give it some thought.”

They passed a few pleasant hours reminiscing, but more than once Asbel found his mind drifting back to Richard. Finally he gave in to the worry and he and Sophie made their goodbyes, leaving Kerri and Hubert alone together.

The house looked perfectly normal when they stepped inside, and Asbel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Of course his concern was for nothing. “Richard, we’re home.”

He went down the hall to the guest bedroom, Sophie trailing just behind. When he poked his head in, he found Richard standing in the middle of the room, his neatly-packed belongings around him.

“Richard…?”

Richard cleared his throat nervously. “Asbel. I don’t want you to think this is anything you did or didn’t do.”

Sophie peered around Asbel. “Richard, are you leaving?”

“Sophie, can you give us a minute?” Asbel gently ushered Sophie back towards the door. “We’ll be right out, I promise.”

“I don’t want Richard to leave.”

“I know. Just one minute, okay, Sophie?”

Sophie stood in the hall and watched as Asbel shut her on the far side of the door.

He turned to Richard. “I completely understand you wanting to leave. I’m sorry about all this. I wish there was something I could do.” He put a hand to his forehead. “I’m supposed to be able to protect the people I care about and I failed.”

“Asbel.” Richard put a hand on his arm. “That’s not it. I’m leaving to protect you. More specifically, Sophie.”

“Sophie?”

“Lambda doesn’t like her. I’m afraid he might try to… to use me to hurt her. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Queenie by my hand.”

“Who?”

Richard blinked. “Sophie. Your daughter?”

“You didn’t say Sophie. You said ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to _Queenie_.’ Who’s Queenie?”

“Queenie?” Richard furrowed his brow. “Did I really say that?”

Asbel nodded.

“Hm. It seems unlikely I merely misspoke. I wonder if that’s someone Lambda knew.” He looked up, his eyes bright. “Asbel. I believe I must help you uncover the identity of this ‘Queenie.’ It will let us know what ill will Lambda may hold towards her, and in so doing keep Sophie safe.”

“Lambda did say Sophie reminded him of someone,” Asbel said, tapping his chin in thought. “I don’t know, Richard. I know knowledge is supposed to be power, but finding out Lambda’s identity and how he died didn’t help us much at all.”

“According to common belief, ghosts are spirits of the dead who can’t cross over because they are anchored to the mortal plane by some unfinished business, correct? Lambda’s unfinished business must involve Queenie. Asbel, if we can finish Lambda’s unfinished business for him, perhaps he’ll be able to find peace at last!”

“Yeah, okay, but how are we supposed to _do_ that, exactly? Please don’t say go to the library…”

“Actually I was going to say we should have a séance, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve seen far too many horror films to think that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, we want less possession, not more.”

“That reminds me. Perhaps we ought to consult with our friend the sheriff, see if he can help us out any.”

“I don’t see why not, but what do you think he can help with?”

“Well, they say possession _is_ nine-tenths of the law.”

There was a long silence.

“I’ll help you carry your bags to the car,” Asbel said at last, bending to pick one up.

“Oh, come on. You have to give me credit for that one. That one was good!”

“Nope.”

“Can I come back in yet?” Sophie called from the other side of the door.

Richard and Asbel suddenly remembered why they were having this conversation.

“Oh yes!” Richard looked around at his belongings. “I… I’m afraid I remain uncertain as to what to do.”

“If it were just me, I’d say there was no problem,” Asbel said.

Richard nodded. “But this also concerns Queenie.”

Asbel looked up sharply.

Richard pointed his index finger at him. “Gotcha. But in all seriousness, I understand you must put the safety of your child first.”

Asbel took a deep breath. “I want you to stay. I trust you.”

Richard was truly astonished. “But… but Asbel, Sophie…”

“Would say the same thing,” Asbel said. “We both care about you. You’re our friend. And it’s my fault this is happening. I think you’re right. I think we need to help Lambda find peace. And I definitely don’t know how to go about doing that. I need you.”

Richard looked a little choked up. “Thank you, Asbel. You don’t know how much that means to me. I shall do everything in my power not to betray that trust.”


	10. Chapter 10

As it turned out, Malik did have some help he could offer them, in the form of the record of the fire itself. Unfortunately, there was no mention of anyone called “Queenie” anywhere in it.

“Maybe it’s a nickname,” Richard said thoughtfully.

“And if it is?” Asbel prompted.

“Then, my friend, I’m afraid we are, to speak in the vernacular, boned. Without even a name, she could be anyone. She could have been his pet dog, for all we know.”

“Sophie does not resemble a dog,” Asbel said defensively. Then he thought about it for a second. “Well. Much.”

The front door blew open then. “Hello! Your friendly neighborhood window repair lady reporting for duty!” Pascal declared.

“Let’s see how long this one lasts,” Asbel said, getting to his feet.

“I had a thought about that,” Richard said. “Perhaps if I simply leave the window open, Lambda will not feel so trapped.”

“That’s not going to bother you? Just leaving it open all the time?”

“Not at all. It’s summer anyway. At least until another storm blows in, it will likely be most pleasant.”

Asbel shrugged. “Well, sure. I guess it makes sense to give it a try.”

“You guys still trying to figure out what to do about Lambda?” Pascal asked.

“Yeah. Richard thinks he needs to find some kind of peace.”

“Ohh.” Pascal looked thoughtful. “Maybe he just needs a friend!”

“I’ll remember that’s what you’re after if you ever start haunting me,” Asbel said. “Come on. Thanks for doing this, by the way. I’m not sure I put the last one in right.”

“There was a bit of a gap in the wall,” Richard said.

“No problem. Putting in windows is easy-peasy. Even you could learn how to do it, Asbel!”

“I’m going to have to at this rate,” Asbel said.

They took the broken window out and hefted the new one into place. Pascal even had a level to make sure it was in properly.

“Say, Pascal, if you wanted to find a person, what would you do?” Asbel ventured.

“I’d yell their name really loud! _Hey Richard_!”

Richard poked his head into the room. “Yes?”

“See?” Pascal beamed.

“Not like that,” Asbel said, though admittedly, he didn’t know what he was expecting when he asked. “If you didn’t know who they were.”

Pascal scratched her head with the edge of her level. “So I don’t know who they are and I don’t know where they are… What _do_ I know?”

“A name. That might not actually be their name.”

“Uhh, well. I guess I’d just ask everybody I ran into!” Pascal seemed pleased with her solution.

“Why do I get the feeling that’s what I’m going to end up having to do?”

Sophie came down the hall but stopped short in the doorway upon seeing Pascal. “Uncle Hubert is here,” she said.

“Hey Sophie!” Pascal said, waving.

“Hi Pascal,” Sophie said. “Are you fixing the window?”

“Just finished! Ta-da!”

Sophie looked the window over, then nodded her approval.

“Yay! Sophie likes my window! Go me!” Pascal twirled.

Hubert appeared behind Sophie and pointedly cleared his throat.

“Oh! Sorry. Hey, Hubert. What’s up?” Asbel asked.

“I accidentally took these with me when I left,” Hubert said, holding out the clothes he’d borrowed. “They were just laundered.”

“Oh, uh. Great. Thanks.” Asbel took them. “You wanna hang out for a bit?”

“Come on, Little Bro!” Pascal said, jumping at him and grabbing his arm. “Say, are you gonna be getting a place here? Then we could _all_ be neighbors!”

“Dare to dream,” Hubert said, trying to pry her off. “Asbel, I also wanted to speak to you in private briefly, if I could.”

“Yeah, sure, okay.” He stepped past the others into the hall with Hubert, then together the two of them went to his room. “What’s up?”

Hubert cleared his throat again. “I was wondering if perhaps you would accompany me to see Father today.”

“Oh. Of course. You didn’t have to bring me in here to ask, you know.”

Hubert shifted awkwardly, adjusting his glasses and deciding not to answer.

“You wanna go now?”

“Whenever is comfortable for you.”

Not going at all would be most comfortable for Asbel, but saying so would be selfish at best. “Yeah, sure, now’s fine.”

When Asbel told Richard of their plans, Richard’s eyes lit up. “The cemetery! Asbel, you’re brilliant!”

“Uh,” said Asbel, at a bit of a loss. “We’re just going because Hubert—”

“No, don’t you see? Surely Lambda is there—perhaps our mysterious Queenie is as well.” Richard wiggled his eyebrows.

“Who’s Queenie?” Sophie asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Asbel said. “That name… doesn’t ring any bills, does it?”

“Ding dong,” Sophie said, then shook her head. “No. No bells.”

Hubert cleared his throat pointedly, and Asbel could tell he was exercising great restraint in not commenting on the conversation at hand. “Shall we, then?”

When they reached the family mausoleum, the air was thick with humidity and akwardness. Asbel left the flowers he’d brought, then quietly excused himself to join Sophie and Richard outside, leaving Hubert to have a moment alone. Hubert would never say so out loud, and possibly not even privately, but Asbel liked to think he was grateful for that.

In the mean time, the others decided to look around for Lambda’s grave. It might have been a long shot, but it was within the realm of possibility that Queenie would be buried nearby too, and since they were there, it didn’t hurt to try.

Asbel thought they were in for quite a bit of searching, even with the ballpark of knowing when Lambda had died, but Richard walked straight towards one headstone in particular.

Asbel and Sophie followed. Sure enough, it was Lambda’s.

“I felt drawn here,” Richard said, staring at the headstone. “It must be Lambda.”

That disturbed Asbel. It meant that Lambda could influence Richard even when they weren’t at the house. He saw no reason to voice this concern, however, and so kept it to himself.

“He was so young,” said Sophie. “Younger than me even.”

The three of them stood in respectful silence for a long moment, the magnitude of what they were seeing not lost on any of them.

“Well,” said Richard at last, and Asbel was glad he’d taken the responsibility of breaking the silence. “Shall we have a look around?”

They fanned out to inspect the surrounding graves, but none of the names stood out to Asbel as being something for which “Queenie” might be a nickname. He was feeling at a bit of a loss when Hubert joined him silently.

“I know you think this is all silly,” Asbel said, not looking up at him. “I appreciate you not saying anything about it… today anyway.”

Hubert nodded curtly.

Asbel knew what the answer would be, but he decided to ask anyway. “You don’t suppose Dad might…?”

“No,” Hubert said without hesitation, as expected. He paused before adding, to Asbel’s surprise, “Father would never leave any business unfinished.”

“Well, that’s certainly true, yeah.”

They lapsed into silence again for a moment before Hubert at last made a low humming sound. “Though it pains me greatly to encourage this folly in any way, have you perhaps considered a funeral announcement?”

“What?”

“There may have been an announcement in the newspaper about the services held for this ‘Lambda’ person. Maybe your ‘Queenie’ is also mentioned therein. It’s a reasonable assumption, particularly if she was family.”

Asbel snapped his fingers. “That’s a great idea!”

Richard agreed when they told him. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he said, tapping his chin in thought.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Richard. Hubert always was the best when it came to research.”

Hubert sniffed. “I know you’re trying to insult me, but I choose instead to take that as a compliment.”

“You don’t mind stopping at the library before I take you back to get your car, do you?” Asbel asked. “It’s just, we’d only be going all the way there, then turning around and coming right back…”

“I begin to pay for my lapse in judgment already,” Hubert said wearily. “Very well, let’s be expedient.”

Once back in town, Sophie tugged on Asbel’s sleeve and asked first to stop in at the bakery, where they found Cheria working. She offered to show Sophie how things worked in the kitchen, and Sophie happily accepted. Asbel was relieved. He disliked bringing Sophie along on their fact-finding missions about Lambda.

So, leaving Sophie in safe hands, he, Richard, and Hubert headed back to the library, where Richard loaded the microfiche and began skimming through the appropriate dates for some kind of funeral announcement.

“There,” Hubert said, pointing, invested in spite of himself. “Is that it?”

Sure enough, it was the article they were looking for. “No mention of siblings,” said Richard, reading it over. “Ah! ‘Also in attendance was the decedent’s best friend, Queenie’—”

“Wait, ‘best friend’?” Asbel interrupted. “That doesn’t make any sense. I thought he hated her?”

“But we have a name now,” said Richard. “And a relationship. That’s something to go on.”

“Indeed,” said Hubert. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Asbel and Richard looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

Back at the bakery, they found Pascal in the middle of an animated performance. “No, no, get this! It was the weirdest thing! It was all BOOM! WHOOSH! I was all like, whaaat? And then it turned out the safety valve had failed!”

“Oh, no!” said Cheria. “Was everyone all right?”

“Yeah, just blasted a hole through the roof. Like a rocket! KERPOW! It was pretty cool really, I don’t know why they were so mad.”

“I’m sure. Hey, guys,” Cheria said, quickly seizing the distraction caused by the arrival of Asbel, Hubert, and Richard.

Sophie appeared over her shoulder. “Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, kind of,” Asbel said. “Uh, say, can you guys go on ahead? I want to talk to Cheria for a minute, if that’s all right with her.”

Cheria blinked. “Yeah, sure. Grandfather, I’m taking my break!” she called back into the kitchen, pulling her apron off over her head.

Richard pulled Sophie outside, winking over his shoulder at Asbel.

“Hey, Little Bro,” Pascal said, catching up to Hubert before he could get away. “Have you ever seen a boiler explosion?”

Once everyone had left, Asbel motioned to one of the little tables set up in the bakery for customers. He and Cheria both sat.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Asbel said. “I’m still not really sure how I can make it up to you guys, but I just wanted to say again how sorry I am. About everything.”

Cheria didn’t speak when he paused, just waited for him to continue.

“It was really selfish of me. I didn’t think how my just dropping off the face of the planet would affect people. I was really stupid and inconsiderate. I like to think I’m not that person anymore, that I’ve learned a little bit of empathy.”

“Oh, Asbel,” said Cheria, shaking her head. “You were always empathetic. You’re just a little… bull-headed.”

“Oh.” Asbel wasn’t really sure what else to say to that.

“I was hurt and angry,” she went on. “But I’ve been watching you since you got back and I can see that you’re right. You aren’t that person anymore. You’ve grown up a lot. I see it in the way you fixed up your house. I see it in the way you care for Sophie. I trust you wouldn’t make a mistake like that again.”

“No, definitely,” Asbel quickly assured her.

“Note that this only goes for me, by the way,” she added. “I’m not excusing you on behalf of anyone else. But I, at least, am willing to forgive and move on. It’s… it’s what I wanted to do all along, really, but I was too mad at first.”

“Which I understand.”

“As much as I kind of hate it, I… I can’t stay mad at you,” she said.

“Well… I’m glad, anyway,” Asbel said.

Both of them lapsed into awkward silence.

“You wanna—” Asbel paused to clear his throat, then tried again. “You wanna do something sometime, just the two of us? See a movie or something?”

Cheria giggled into her hand, at his expense he was pretty sure. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”


	11. Chapter 11

The bruise on Asbel’s torso began to fade, and still he didn’t mention it or the dream-that-may-not-have-been to Richard, or anyone else for that matter. For reasons he couldn’t articulate, it felt like his concern and his alone.

Now that they had Queenie’s full name, they decided to find out what happened to her. If she was still alive, maybe she held the key to Lambda. Asbel updated Cheria on everything they knew, and she agreed to help.

Richard had organized a file labeled “LAMBDA.” In it he grouped all the information they had gathered so far, printouts of the articles and the police report and so on. He also had inserted a note in his own hand on which he had jotted various thought fragments: _unfinished business? family? Queenie?_

“Maybe his unfinished business is simply that he died so young,” Cheria said thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s upset about that. Who wouldn’t be?”

“How are we supposed to satisfy _that_?” Asbel said.

“Let’s just hope there’s something a little more specific he needs seen to particularly, such as an unkept appointment or an undelivered letter,” Richard said.

“Wouldn’t that be convenient,” said Cheria.

Richard held up a finger. “My dear, we shall never solve this puzzle with that attitude. Like any good story, Lambda’s must have an ending. We are merely conduits, humble seekers of the truth.”

“Oh,” Asbel said, stopping on an Internet search hit.

“What is it?” Richard and Cheria both peered over his shoulder at the computer.

“It says Queenie died over ten years ago,” said Asbel, clicking the link. “She moved away and had a family in another state.”

“I guess she can’t answer any questions, then,” Cheria said.

“Not unless she’s haunting a house somewhere too, but that seems a bit unlikely,” Richard admitted. “After all, it sounds like she lived a long, full life, and thus would have no reason to stick around.”

“Asbel, was this all there was to the report?” Cheria was thumbing somewhat absently through Richard’s folder.

“All that the Sheriff gave us, yeah,” Asbel said, looking up over his shoulder at her. “Why?”

“It doesn’t say how the fire started.”

Richard and Asbel exchanged glances. “What? Of course it does,” Richard said, scoffing a bit. “It must. It was… ah… Asbel?”

“It was like a… one of those… wasn’t it?”

“Oh, brother,” Cheria muttered. “How could you two not have noticed something like that? This could be huge! What if somebody else set the fire?”

“You think Lambda was _murdered_?” Asbel said.

“Gruesome. I like it,” said Richard. “Perhaps our duty is vengeance, or at least justice. Mayhap it was Queenie after all, a secret they both took to their respective graves. It would explain Lambda’s animus.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about vigilante justice,” Asbel said, scratching the back of his neck. “Plus, we’ve established Queenie’s already dead. Not much we could do anyway.”

“Maybe he just wants people to know what happened,” Cheria said. “You know, for the truth to come out.”

“How would we go about proving it though?”

“Obviously, the Sheriff.”

Richard waved a hand dismissively. “No, I already made that joke.”

“What?”

“Don’t ask,” Asbel told Cheria.

She looked between the two of them, then shook her head. “Anyway, my point is that if anybody would have information about how to close the book on a potential crime, it would be law enforcement.”

“That might just be foolhardy enough to work,” said Richard. “Let’s give a shot.”

“Can I come?” Sophie said, leaning into the doorway.

“Sophie, were you eavesdropping?” Asbel frowned.

“What else was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t let me come in and listen normally.”

“She does have a point,” Richard said, earning himself a glare from Asbel.

“I just want to help Richard,” Sophie said.

Asbel found his will crumbling in the face of those big earnest eyes. “Fine. But I get to change my mind at any time, you hear?”

She nodded eagerly.

Malik was nonplussed when they explained the problem to him. He retreated into the station’s records room to see if there was something he’d missed, but when he came back, it was clear the room held more dust than it did answers.

“This smells like a cover-up to me,” Richard said darkly. “No wonder Lambda can’t find peace. No one cares what happened to him.”

“We care, Richard,” Cheria said, putting a hand on his arm soothingly.

“Don’t you guys have this stuff on computer? Electronic files or whatever?” Asbel asked, gesticulating vaguely.

Malik shook his head. “We haven’t really had the resources to get it all transferred yet. It’s a lot of work, and we’re understaffed as it is.”

“Especially since only one of us does any real work,” his deputy, Victoria, quipped from where she was filing away some reports.

“Oh, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short,” Malik said, not missing a beat.

Victoria rolled her eyes and ignored him.

Asbel was frustrated but not ready to give up. “Is there any reason why the cause of the fire wouldn’t be included in the report?”

Malik shook his head. “This is only speculation, but my guess would be either they couldn’t figure it out or they could but didn’t want it to be on the record.”

“A cover-up,” Richard repeated.

Malik shrugged. “If you like.”

“Perhaps Queenie was from a family with some influence,” Richard said. He glanced at Asbel.

“She wasn’t a Lhant, we know that much,” said Asbel, holding up his hands.

“Richard, are you suggesting the sheriff’s department can be bought off?” Malik said, raising an eyebrow.

“Every man has his price, Sheriff,” Richard said without hesitation. “I have seen enough bought and sold in my time to know that a child’s life can be a commodity as easily as anything else.”

Nobody had anything to say to that for a long moment.

“Well,” Richard said abruptly, “it seems if there are answers, they are not to be found here. Thank you for your time and help, Sheriff.” His expression was closed off as he headed for the door.

Asbel glanced over at Cheria, who looked as apprehensive as he felt.

“I think Richard is taking this personally,” she muttered to Asbel before they followed him.

Asbel shook his head. “He just needs some answers. Lambda deserves them.” But he and Cheria both knew he didn’t feel the conviction with which he tried to speak.


	12. Chapter 12

When he got up late the next morning, Asbel was surprised to find Hubert there, sitting at the head of the dining room table with Sophie, Richard, and Cheria grouped around him. Instead of breakfast on the table, though, there were papers. Asbel had a brief mad notion of Hubert actually subsisting off data rather than food before he recognized the Lambda file—his second surprise.

“Uh, hi,” said Asbel, trying to pat down his bed head. “What’s going on?”

Richard cleared his throat. He seemed a little anxious, having trouble meeting Asbel’s eyes. “I asked Hubert to come over and lend us his services in sorting out this mess once and for all. I also asked—”

“Yoo-hoo!” Pascal burst in through the front door, followed more sedately by Malik.

“—the Sheriff,” Richard finished.

“You didn’t ask Pascal?” Asbel asked.

Richard gave him a wry look. “I knew I wouldn’t have to.”

He and Asbel both laughed, and the tension Asbel felt seemed to lessen considerably. He caught Cheria watching them. She smiled at him, and his worries evaporated. As wild and sticky as this whole mess was, he felt an overwhelming certainty that they could solve any problem as long as they were together. Alone he wasn’t much, but Richard and Cheria and everybody made him stronger.

Asbel pulled out the chair next to Hubert and sat down. Sophie was across from him, Cheria moving to take the seat on Sophie’s other side. Pascal dropped down next to Asbel and Malik slid in on the far side of her. Richard stayed standing at the head of the table, behind Hubert’s chair.

“Thank you all for coming,” Richard said, exactly as if he were conducting a business meeting. “I’m sure all of you are familiar with the situation by now. I realize that this riddle is a bit beyond me, and so I’m hoping that your alternate perspectives might offer some heretofore unseen elucidation.”

Hubert cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the room to himself. “The facts are these. We know Lambda perished in a fire here some decades ago. We know he occupied the room now inhabited by Richard, and that he attempted to escape the fire through the window but was, obviously, unsuccessful. We know he was the only casualty of the fire. We do not know how the fire was started. We know his supposed best friend at the time was a girl of his age known as Queenie, also since passed. We know that for some reason, he now seems to bear her ill will. Does anyone wish to add anything?”

“Can I add that I’m really surprised you’re here helping with this?” Asbel said.

Hubert pushed his glasses up his nose. “Not if you wish for me to continue doing so.”

Asbel held up his hands.

“I think,” Sophie said quietly, softly, then stopped.

Everyone waited patiently for her to go on.

She traced a pattern on the table with her fingertip. “I had a dream one night. I was asleep in bed and someone was standing over me. At first I thought it was Richard, but then when I looked, it was Lambda. He said, ‘I won’t let you get away this time,’ and I wanted to ask him what he meant, but he disappeared, or I woke up, or something.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, Sophie,” Asbel said gently. “Did he try to hurt you?”

“I think…” Another pause. “He wanted to, and I thought he might, but he didn’t, no.”

Richard gripped the back of Hubert’s chair, his knuckles white, but he remained silent.

“‘I won’t let you get away this time,’” Hubert repeated thoughtfully. “You’re sure that’s what he said?”

“That seems to support the theory that she set the fire—Queenie, I mean. Right?” Cheria looked around the table uncertainly.

“I find it hard to believe a young child could hurt her best friend like that,” Malik said at length. “But then, I suppose stranger people have happened.” He cut a pointed glance at Pascal, who failed to notice.

“That’s not,” Richard groaned, but he seemed unable to finish the thought, his face contorted in pain.

Asbel got to his feet quickly, grabbing Richard’s arm to steady him. With a jolt, he found himself thrown into another vision.

It was the kitchen of the house, his house, but like before, it was not quite the same. This time it was not on fire. He heard sounds coming from down the hall—whispers, he thought. He didn’t even have to think about where to go this time, heading straight for the guest bedroom. There he found two figures crouched on the floor, a boy and a girl. Lambda and someone else. Queenie, Asbel guessed.

They were giggling. Lambda was holding something. There was a brief flare of light. Queenie reached out and touched it, letting out a tiny shriek before pulling her hand back. She and Lambda both laughed.

Asbel approached them quietly, even though he knew they couldn’t hear or see him. He peered over their shoulders: matches. They were playing with matches. His heart fell to his knees.

Something knocked him hard in the jaw and he was snapped back into reality. Richard had accidentally slugged him. It hurt, but he didn’t let go of Richard. “Richard!” he shouted. “Snap out of it!”

“Asbel, what just happened?” Cheria was halfway out of her seat, hovering anxiously.

“I think I know what happened,” Asbel said. “It was an accident.”

“An accident?” Richard repeated, wrenching himself out of Asbel’s grasp.

“Yeah. They were—”

“You call that an _accident_?” Richard was shouting now. With one swift movement, he shoved all the papers off the table, sending them fluttering haphazardly to the floor.

Most everyone jumped to their feet, startled. Cheria protectively pulled Sophie out of the way as Asbel and Malik instinctively positioned themselves between her and Richard.

“Lambda?” Asbel ventured.

“You _left_ ,” Richard— _Lambda_ snarled, jabbing his finger accusingly at Sophie.

“Richard—I mean Lambda,” Asbel said, standing directly in front of him, forcing him to make eye contact. “Listen to me. That’s not Queenie. Queenie’s not here. She died too. And she didn’t mean for it to happen any more than you did. It was a game, wasn’t it? You were just messing around with something you shouldn’t have been. Playing with matches.”

“A _game_? You think it was a _game_ , me dying?” The papers on the floor began to move seemingly on their own.

Asbel eyed them warily. “Richard—Lambda—please, calm down—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” An inexplicable gust of wind roared through the house suddenly, and with a crash, every single window shattered at once.

“Whoa!” Pascal cried. Hubert had grabbed onto her, though whether it was from fear or to shield her from the shrapnel, Asbel couldn’t have said. Both, probably.

He kept most of his attention on Lambda/Richard. Malik was at his shoulder, ready to get involved physically if the need arose. It allowed Asbel to stay a lot calmer than he might have otherwise.

“You left me to die!” Lambda yelled.

“Asbel!” Pascal called over the howling wind. “Remember what I said before?”

Asbel didn’t think now was a very good time to admit that most of what Pascal said was completely lost on him. As was usually the case, he had no idea what she was talking about now either.

“Sophie!” Cheria called.

But Sophie had wriggled out of Cheria’s grip. Arms up to shield herself from the wind, she forged ahead straight in Richard’s direction.

“Sophie, stay back!” Asbel shouted, trying to put every ounce of dad in his voice that he could.

It had no effect. Sophie kept coming.

“ _Sophie_!”

Sophie reached out and grabbed onto Richard’s arm. The intensity of the wind increased, and Asbel was sure the whole house was going to rip apart.

“Queenie didn’t leave on purpose,” Sophie said. “She didn’t know you were in danger. She always blamed herself.”

“That’s a lie!” Lambda yelled. “You left and you never looked back! You had a whole life without me!”

“She thought about you every day!” Sophie went on, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the din. “She missed you every day! She always felt guilty and sad. She missed you so much. As much as you missed her.”

“You’re a liar! I _hate_ you!”

“No, you don’t,” Sophie said. “All this time… you’ve been lonely. But you don’t have to be alone anymore. We’re here now.” She wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

Asbel’s fear rose to a fever pitch, sure that something terrible was about to happen to Sophie. He choked it down. Forcing himself not to hesitate anymore, he joined them.

The wind began to abate.

Cheria was behind him, and then Malik. Pascal dragged Hubert over. Soon they were all hugging Richard—and Lambda.

The wind died.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner,” Sophie muttered. “I wanted to be here for Richard. I didn’t know I needed to be here for Lambda too. I’m sorry, Lambda. You’re not alone anymore, I promise.”

The only sounds that came in response were Lambda’s broken sobs.


	13. Epilogue

“Asbel!” Malik called. “Visitor!”

Asbel brushed the dust off his hands, then headed out of the records room to the front of the station. Richard was there, holding up a brown paper bag. “Forget something?”

“Oh,” said Asbel, just as his stomach let out a ferocious growl.

“Feeding time at the zoo, I see,” Richard said, raising an eyebrow. “Apparently I’ve arrived in the nick of time. Down, beast!”

“Shut up,” Asbel said, taking the bag. He peeked inside. “Surprise. Chicken.”

Richard shrugged. “Cheria made it, I just offered to deliver it so I could take the credit.”

“And get out of cleaning, I’m sure,” Asbel added.

Richard stuck his nose in the air. “Pascal was there too. She, Cheria, and Sophie had things well in hand. I was only in the way. Too many cooks and all that.”

“I don’t think that applies when you’ve got a whole house to put back together.”

“Excuse me!” Malik bellowed suddenly. “How much longer are you going to continue distracting my deputy sheriff-in-training?”

Richard pretended to check the time. “Precisely three minutes and twenty-seven seconds more, my good sir,” he said. “How much longer till the training wheels come off, anyway?”

“I’ve still got about half the records room to do,” Asbel said, brushing the sweat off his forehead. He was exhausted just thinking about it.

Richard cocked his head, puzzled. “No, I mean—surely there’s some kind of training course you’re completing, or something to that effect?”

Asbel whipped his head around to look at Malik, who suddenly became preoccupied with the other side of the station. “Oh, I’ve just remembered something I have to… ahem.”

“What the heck!” Asbel said, thoroughly indignant.

Richard coughed to cover up his laugh, though he didn’t do a very good job of it. “Oh, come now, Asbel. Surely you didn’t _truly believe_ …?”

Asbel glowered. “Shut up,” he said again.

Richard’s phone rang then. He checked it. “Oh, Cheria. She wants me to pick up more lightbulbs.”

“I must be solely responsible for the salary of like three employees at that hardware store by now,” Asbel muttered.

“Four, at least,” Richard agreed. “Well, my errand here complete, I shall take my leave. I have more lightbulbs to obtain and _The Ghost of Lhant Hill_ —or whatever I’ll be calling it tomorrow—is not going to write itself.”

“A novel that writes itself,” said Asbel. “There’s an idea for a novel.”

Richard considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “Too meta.” Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “I just remembered. Hubert and Pascal want to come over for dinner.”

Asbel groaned, even though it felt uncharitable. “All they’re going to do is talk about marketing this stupid new water heater of theirs.”

“Tut tut, Asbel,” Richard chided half-jokingly, wagging his finger. “It’s going to revolutionize the way we heat water.”

“Which is great and all, but do we really have to hear so much about it? I wish I’d never introduced them.” He huffed. “All right. I know I’m being a jerk. Tell them yes if you haven’t already. I or Cheria can throw something together.”

“Indeed.” Richard caught Asbel’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll see you at home?”

Asbel grinned. “You better.”

Alone again, he retreated back into the records room. He took a deep breath, then promptly coughed up a lungful of dust. Well, this was hardly the most difficult task he’d ever taken on. He reached for the nearest file, only barely jumping back in time when the whole stack it was on toppled over after it.

“That was a load-bearing file,” Malik observed.

Asbel’s head snapped around to glare at him, but he had already popped out again.

“That wasn’t funny, Lambda,” Asbel muttered.

It might have been his imagination, but he swore he heard a child laugh.


End file.
